beautiful, funny, sad & true

I slept until 11:30 in the morning yesterday, then BoringFish called to see if I was okay, or wanted to hang out or anything. I said I’d love to, so we went and got sushi and talked for a long time, which I’ve really misssed. We both love going on little random day trips, so we agreed to take one sometime soon.

Then I texted Susan if she wanted to play some classical stuff last night, and she wrote back, “How about dinner and Bach at 7?” Perfect.

So we went to Trader Joe’s and combined stir-fried shrimp and a bunch of veggies, cheese and fresh basil over little tiny pasta (that I can’t remember the name of. Looks like shells. . .?) SO GOOD. I wasn’t going to add pictures, but what the heck. Here’s the work in progress:

So then we played through a bunch of pieces that her wedding group plays. I can’t wait to be a good enough classical cellist to be able to play in an orchestra or better yet, a small ensemble. Times like last night are great; it’s how I learn what’s expected of a cellist in a group like that.

So this morning I slept in until 11:30 again, and then went to explore down in the old part of downtown Portland, in the Goose Hollow/Portland Heights neighborhoods. I love that part of town, with the windy old streets, and the stairways that are built into the hillsides. I tried to find cool old houses to take pictures of. I couldn’t really get to the places I had in mind, so I think I may have to go on foot instead. There’s a whole big network of stairways and sidwalks up there, so when the weather’s a little nicer, I’m heading out.

I did find my favorite house in town:

I stumbled onto it on a bike ride once, and I check in on it from time to time to see how its restoration is coming along. It’s not, apparently. The house has been in the same lived-in/falling-apart condition for ages. I’m sure it’ll cost a fortune to have it fixed up, but it’s really an amazing place, with huge stained-glass windows and all the original Victorian trim.

I continued my journey around the West Hills, and at one point ended up on a dead end, where the hill was so steep, and the houses so frickin’ high that the only way to take a picture was through the sunroof:

No good ‘artsy’ pictures to share, unfortunately. The light was kinda weird, and I couldn’t find the places that I wanted to get to. Southwest Portland is such a maze of curves and dead ends that it’s going to take a day of exploration, and my heart just wasn’t in it today.

And can I just say that the roads in town SUCK. All of downtown is such a patchwork of potholes, closed streets, and shoddy fixes that it’s physically painful to drive down there now. My poor little car was really working hard today, dealing with those steep hills and crappy roads, and I was getting tired of being bumped around, so I gave up pretty quick.

But there’s definitely a story in the hills, waiting to be told, and plenty of good pictures too.

Today I stayed home sick.

Called in at 8:00 and said I was going to be home today, got up at 9:00 and had a bowl of cereal. I still could barely keep my eyes open, so naturally I thought about coffee. My very next thought was, ‘What I really want is sleep, not coffee.’ so as soon as I finished my cereal, I went right back to bed. Slept until 1:30 in the afternoon, and I feel much better for it.

Then I got up for real and made French toast. And I’d like to take a minute to say that a day in which you get to have breakfast twice is like an evening that has two completely separate and beautiful sunsets.

After that, I spent the day working on a new MySpace site, doing three loads of laundry and cleaning my apartment. I did the dishes and vacuumed and seriously cleaned the living room. I even took apart, cleaned and vacuumed the heater vents. (The heater vents!) They were pretty nasty and full of dust and gawd-knows-what else. Quite an improvement, I must say, but it made me realize that I’ll need to get a new vacuum soon. Mine’s kinda starting to show its age.

Tonight is the first time my friend Susan (who’s an amazing flutist) and I are having a rehearsal for this tango band we’ve been talking about starting for ages. Neither of us is in a hurry, and we’re both super busy, but we both love tango so much that we want to do something with that love. So she’s going to play flute, and the occasional baritone sax, and I’m going to play accordion, and the occasional cello. We’re looking around for arrangements, and creating a few of our own, and it’s going to be a blast.

I only didn’t write about the cello until now because I’ve been too busy playing it lately to write about it.

I took it in most importantly to get one of the tuning pegs fixed, because every time I’d turn it to tune up, it would slip and go completely slack, which makes the cello useless. So I’d been unable to play for weeks.
(With the exception of the other day, of course, when my friend Sam loaned me his cello for rehearsal with Steph. Thank you, Sam!)
Since I was taking it in for that repair anyway, I had a new end pin (the ‘pin’ that the cello sits on) and tailpiece (where the strings attach) installed at the same time. Now it sits at the correct height, the strings stay in tune, and it’s much easier to adjust the fine tuning also. What a difference!

I picked it up on Thursday afternoon, and had rehearsal with Jaime & Becky that night. Ohmygosh, we had so much fun! They haven’t been playing any gigs for probably a year, because Becky was in Russia teaching and volunteering, but now she’s back, and they’re back. So look for us to start playing out a bit.

Last night, Alyssa and I sat out and talked for a while, then used a two-for-one coupon and went to get a slice of pizza. I had the first pepperoni I’ve had in six months. (Before that, it had been about a year and a half, on my birthday.) Kelly called while we were still at the pizza place, and I told her about the Pepperoni Factor. She said, “You know there’s pork in that.”
“That’s what I hear.”
“You know you’re gonna go to hell.”
“Tchyeah. I knew that, ’cause of all the taking-the-Lord’s-name-in-vain and the copious amounts of pre-marital sex.”

Anyway.

The pepperoni tasted good, but I don’t think it really agreed with me; I’m feeling it this morning. After that, I ended up with a couple of hours to myself, so I pulled out the cello and just sat and played my little heart out. I have to re-learn everything, because it feels like a completely different instrument now. I have to learn how to hold it between my knees, how to make my left arm go to just the right places on the neck, and how to make the bow go to just the right places on the strings.

Funny how I’ve learned to play on such an unconventional instrument. Cello’s a difficult instrument to learn anyway–and this is from someone who plays piano, accordion, guitar, bass, drums, organ, keyboards, AND cello–but throw in all the weird quirks and incorrect angles that mine has, and I’m sure I’ll have plenty of habits to un-learn.

The good news is that when I play on someone else’s instrument, suddenly everything feels right, and it makes playing incredibly easier, but their instruments aren’t usually of the same quality as mine. Mine may look all banged up, or not be as pretty as most, but it’s really a superb instrument. You can tell, even by the way it resonates when you pluck the strings. It’s an Ernst Heinrich Roth, from 1963. Loveitloveitloveitloveit.

And it won’t be much longer before it’s completely fixed and adjusted to standard specifications, which will make it sound even better and play even easier.

I can’t wait!

It was a really nice weekend, but really super busy at the same time.

I took my cello in for Part One of a two-part major overhaul. It’s getting lots of little things fixed and upgraded, and it’s going to get its body re-glued, because the glue’s so old that the thing is barely able to hold itself together anymore. Having that fixed will make a huge improvement in the sound of the instrument, and all the other little fixes will help with its playability. It will sit at the correct height and stay in tune better now; both very important things. Part Two of the overhaul will require major surgery on the fingerboard and neck, and will be much more expensive, so I’ll have to save up a bit for it.

We did more Susie Blue recording with Jason Roark last Saturday. We tracked drums, accordion, and hand claps. After I got home and unloaded my car, Kelly and I went to Urban Outfitters, and I got a cool new pair of pants. Very exciting. I was supposed to go to a show that night, but I was pretty beat after working hard in the studio, so I went back over to Kelly’s, intending to crash, but instead we stayed up really late, drinking chardonnay and watching “Young Frankenstein.” (That’s FRAHNK-en-shteen. . .)

When I got home on Sunday morning, I spent the next two or three hours washing, vacuuming, and detailing my car. Afterwards, I sat in the sun on the front steps of my building to eat lunch, when Kelly arrived. She walked over to Lloyd Center to look for some new clothes, and I met her after my laundry was done and I’d taken a shower. We walked around for a long time, and were both exhausted by the time we got home, so we took a nap while listening to the jazz trio rehearse next door. Pretty dang nice way to spend an afternoon. Then she went home and I went over to rehearse with Stephanie.

Came home all jazzed after having two cups of tea over at Steph’s, so I watched the first episode of the new This American Life TV show. What an amazing program. As a long-time devotee of the radio show, I’m glad they’re doing the television version the ‘right’ way. It has everything I like about the radio version, plus some other elements that just aren’t possible to achieve on the radio. Well done. And as a hopefully interesting aside, did you notice the show’s tag line? ‘Funny, real, surprising, unscripted, true.’ Don’t forget ‘beautiful’ and ‘sad’!

This week is getting a little crazy. (So crazy, in fact, that I can’t seem to keep up with my blog entries!) Rehearsal with Crystin Byrd, CD release with the Young Immortals for the Starbucks compilation, gig with Stephanie Schneiderman, cello back from the repair shop, and rehearsal with Jaime and Becky.

Next week should be a little less crazy. . .