beautiful, funny, sad & true

One of my musician friends hates the phrase ‘mixed bag’, but I’m going to go ahead and use it (albeit with my tongue planted firmly in my cheek), because that’s what this week has been. After a debilitatingly sad couple of weeks, I’m finally feeling able to go and do all the things I normally do. Wednesday night was the play-reading group, and I feel like that’s what brought me back to life. The play we read was the story of a quirky pianist (so naturally I played piano) who had lots of children, and the story was set in an Irish Catholic neighborhood of Chicago, around the time of Prohibition. Very well-written and humorous, and I got the honor of reading the lead role. After that, two of the guys from the group and I went out and talked, and shared a basket of French fries, and caught up on each others’ lives. It was nice, and genuine, and I appreciated it.

Thursday I raced over to my favorite new sushi place to meet Genie-Wa. She’s here visiting her mom and interviewing for jobs so that she can move back here again, which I for one am very glad about. Her rental car was a white convertible, and after some trial and error, we finally figured out how to put the top down. Perfect timing, too, because the seemingly interminable months of shitty, depressing weather are finally starting to break here in Portland, so I’m sure she’ll have plenty of opportunities to race around and enjoy it.

As we were heading our separate ways, my hospitalized friend called. Since she doesn’t have a phone in her room, she has to walk clear across the building into a public area, and sometimes there are people milling around, and other times the place is empty. Sometimes people are using the phone, so she has to walk clear back to her room and try again later. She spends most of her days sleeping. Weekends are particularly long, because the doctors aren’t on duty, so I’m going to go visit her this morning, actually, before my afternoon cello gig and evening accordion gig. These will be the first shows I’ve played in over two weeks. I had to back out of four different gigs since this happened, but now I feel ready to play again.

Last night I went to Slabtown to see three bands; Lasers All The Time, Shim, and Hockey. All amazing. I already had Hockey’s CD because the drummer works with me. I first listened to their CD in my car, and I was so impressed with it that it stayed in constant rotation (as they say in radio jargon) for two weeks.

I was supposed to meet my dad for breakfast at 9:00 this morning. Around 8:00 I heard a strange tapping on my door. It wasn’t a knock, but it sounded like someone was tapping my door with something wooden, or maybe metal. Freaked me out, because strange knocks that early in the morning, particularly in my hidden apartment, are almost never because of good news. So I nervously opened the door, to find my dad on my doorstep. “Would you believe. . .I’m early?” he asked. Sheesh. Naturally, my place is a complete disaster area, because I haven’t been home for the last three nights, and I just rearranged my furniture and everything, so I felt nervous about the early-morning knocks, and also about the disarray of my place.

The visit went okay, though. He asked about my friend, and asked a bit about what our relationship was like, and how she was doing, and seemed (somewhat uncharacteristically) empathetic and understanding. But again, he was nice, and genuine, so I certainly appreciated that.

I’ve noticed quite a few blog visits from two different places recently; one of which is in the Portland area, and the other is in the Bay Area. I have a pretty good idea of the places that the regular readers are from, and of those of my friends who read this blog, but these are both new ones. If you’re one of the long-term readers of BFST, you’ll understand why I raise an eyebrow at sudden bursts of energy like that. That’s all I’ll say about it.

Took my cello in for a quick and easy repair the other day. It has a ‘wolf’ tone, which is a common affliction for cellos. It’s hard to explain, but certain notes make the body vibrate excessively, and the horrible, warbling tone it produces when that happens is called a wolf. I don’t know why it’s called that, but I’m just glad that it’s minimized now. They never completely go away, apparently. The repair guy said that the cello instructor at the main university here in town has a cello that’s worth nine hundred thousand dollars, but it has that wolf tone, which was minimized by sticking a piece of a wine cork down between the body and the tailpiece. So funny, and now I have one there too.

And now it’s time to drive out to the hospital.

OneYearAgo

I just got home (it’s 11:00 at night as I’m writing this) to find that I had a ton of hits today from a link on AOL. I checked it out, and sure enough, there it is. Top of the list. Ay-Oh-Freakin’-Ell. That’s huge exposure. The funny thing about it is that out of all the witty, insightful, emotional and heartfelt entries here on BFST, which one do you suppose the bots linked to?

This one; one of the lamest non-entries in the entire blog.

Figures.

It’s as if they’re bringing a news crew to discover the Next Big Thing. The crew turn on the lights, the drumroll begins, and the announcer-slash-supermodel says, “Okay, America, here. . .he. . .IS!” They knock on the door and I answer, surprised, blinking and squinting and raising my hand in front of the bright lights and cameras, disheveled and unshaven, wearing boxer shorts and a ‘Makin’ Bacon‘ T-shirt.

I say, “Uhhhh. . .hi?” with the rising inflection, looking around for a place to hide. “I’m kind of. . .uh. . .I never wear this shirt. Can you guys come back in an hour? I’m just. . .gonna–” I gesture with my thumb toward the back of my apartment building. “I gotta go.”

What I’m trying to say, by way of China, is that if you’re one of the people who clicked over to my blog from AOL, welcome. I have the sneaking suspicion that it wasn’t what you were expecting to find, but I hope you enjoy it nonetheless.

Way too busy to write; I can’t believe it’s been almost a week since I wrote last.  This may be the longest stretch of silence on my part since I started this blog.  Sorry for that.  I know, I know. . .part of having a blog is actually writing in it.

I will this weekend.

Last weekend was great.  Two great movies, a hilarious play, and a really fun house concert, and an attempted tram ride.  And I rearranged the furniture in my apartment.

Yesterday, I got some really sad news and then some not-very-good news right after that.  Kind of bummed about it all.  Some of it involves my friend’s cat, and the fact that I’ll be keeping her here for a while again.  That in itself doesn’t bother me, but the reason that it’s necessary for me to watch her does bother me, very much.

That’s all I have time for at the moment.  I’ll be around, in the meantime.

[EDIT, 6/7/08: For some reason, I’ve suddenly gotten a bunch of referrals from AOL to this particular entry, which is quite possibly the lamest throw-away entry in this entire blog. I’d like to invite you to the top of the blog, where you can read some real entries. Thank you.]

I just have time for a quick entry right now. I know you’ll be excited to know that my tag cloud over there is all up-to-date now; all entries are accounted for.

While I was at work yesterday afternoon, as if on cue, I got a text message from A that said, “How about a movie? My treat!” And yes, she’s also a beautiful girl. So although she didn’t read it, it’s as if my blog entry from yesterday came true. We went to see Persepolis, which was beautiful, and funny, and sad and true. We were completely enthralled by it.

Today I slept until 12:30 in the afternoon. Sheesh. I must have been even more run down this week than I realized.

Tonight is a house concert that my friend John is hosting, featuring John Vecchiarelli and Kristi Martel. It promises to be a blast. I was going to go and just listen, but I just now found out that I’ve been invited to bring my accordion and play with John V. on a song or two, which I’m totally looking forward to.

I’d better clean up and go, but I’m glad we had time for this little chat.

It’s been kind of a rough week.

Work has been super stressful this week, because one of the people in my department has been on vacation, and we’re pretty much down to a skeleton crew anyway, times being what they are.  I’m also pretty much broke from an expensive car repair and a high phone bill.   When I get stressed out and exhausted like I have been, the answer to every question is ‘No!’, even if the question is, ‘Hi, I’m a beautiful girl.  You look like you could use a hug.  Would you like to go out on a date?  My treat.’

On my way home for lunch today, I had six different cars pull in front of me, or run a stop sign, or box me in on the road, or something.  All in half an hour.  AND I still have to drive back.  Yeesh.  My nerves are kinda shot.

Luckily last night’s rehearsal with Lara was a blast.  We learned a Beatles song; one of their trickiest, in fact.  We got it sounding pretty good last night, but we each need to woodshed and tighten it up a bit on our own, and then we’ll rehearse again right before the show next Friday night.  The show with Susie on Wednesday was also a blast; I’d go so far as to say that it was one of our best shows.

There’s a story I’m working on that is an extremely rare subject for me to write about.  I had an experience about ten years ago that I’ve been trying to think of a way to tell here.  I was inspired by one of Tossed In’s latest entries, but I’m not quite sure how to frame it, or how to put it all into just the right words.  It’ll come, but it’s gonna be tricky.

And now it’s time to brave the traffic and head back out into the world again, after a much-too-short respite.  This month can not be over with soon enough, as far as I’m concerned.  Thank gawd for the three-day weekend.

OneYearAgo