We had a good, solid dress rehearsal this morning where we got some blank-memory moments out of our systems, committed music (there were goosebumps!), and were in general pleased with how things happened. I am personally satisfied with my bits in the IBFKATCS. I’m looking forward to the gig tonight.
I had my first soft-serve ice cream cone of the year yesterday. Chocolate and vanilla swirl, dipped in hard chocolate coating. Delicious.
And happy Earth Day to all!
Since my original engagement was cancelled last night, I joined the impromptu open rehearsal some of the band was having at the studio. There, in the words of the lovely and talented Mousme, “we beat the instrumental of J’Veux pas vieillir into bloody submission, and lo, all was right with the world once more.” I threw my bow at the floor three times in frustrated despair during the beating, however. (Kids, don’t try this at home. I have four low-end bows; I can afford to do stupid things that can damage the equipment in question. And now it occurs to me that I have a heavier bow that would probably better serve my purposes in the band, instead of my lightish all-purpose one I use for orchestra. Note to self: Get the hard case and all the extra bows out of storage from the in-laws’ basement. Bonus: I can finally give t! my old three-quarter fibreglass bow to mess about with as well.)
So, The Instrumental Bit Formerly Known As The Cello Solo will happen. It may not be as pretty as I would like it to be, but it will happen. (And assuaging my gnashiness with the knowledge that it will be over before the audience figures out what bit it is does no good, of course.) Ceri and Mousme were absolutely rock-solid supportive and patient friends last night as we did it over, and over, and over. They even recorded their bits onto tape for me to practice against at home, as I can play the damn thing when no one else is playing with me; it’s listening to the other stuff going on at the same time that throws me. It will be fine, of course; I’ll be the only one who knows it’s not as good as I want it to be.
Tomorrow is full of dress rehearsal, moving equipment, setting up the space, and sound checks. HRH gets to watch Liam during the day while I do music-stuff, until Liam’s grandma takes over the babysitting in the late afternoon.
I had an excellent morning/early afternoon today with ai731, having my hair professionally highlighted (and I have it on good authority that it looks “really, really, really gorgeous”, although I can’t tell because I can’t see it from the correct angles, darn it all), doing lunch, and helping out with corset refitting. We ran errands together yesterday afternoon as well, and I picked up the most adorable little boom stand for the supplemental microphone that’s only about eighteen inches tall. Now I don’t feel as if there’s something looming over me when I sit between the supplemental mic and the amp.
Book roundup: I’ve finally finished Rose of the World by Jude Fisher, the final book in an epic fantasy trilogy, and the end kind of trailed away. I think it lacked punch because the climax was being told from the POV of over six characters, and things kept skipping around. The momentum was lost over about a hundred pages. Anyway, when I realised I was just turning pages to get to the next plot point, I put it down for a couple of days and reread Pratchett’s Witches Abroad instead. I’m always surprised at how quickly this book is over: it’s a very smooth read, and full of truths about basic stories and how they play themselves out again and again. And while discussing Connie Willis with Ceri and Mousme last night I decided to reread Bellwether, so I started that this morning.
Now: more practicing, a warm bath, then bed! And my fingers are crossed for Liam sleeping through the night, for everyone’s benefit. He had a bad night last night. I want these new teeth of his to finally appear and be done with it.
I so desperately miss writing. Writing as my day job, I mean. Having a notebook next to the bed so I can jot things down as I fall asleep isn’t the same. I miss growing a story, I miss taking an idea and developing it through a chapter of NF, I miss being ambushed by a scene or story that has to be written right now, and I miss the feeling of being drained but happy with the number of words I set down during a work session. I even miss growling about how badly the writing’s going, because even then there’s some writing of substance happening. And I even miss this.
And before anyone helpfully hops in with ideas, please understand that I’m not in need of solutions to give myself writing time. My life is different right now, and I understand that; I knew what I was signing up for when I had the baby. I’m glad to have this journal in which to record thoughts and comments and the daily swing of things; that’s my writing right now. I’m just nostalgic for the huge part of my life that writing fiction and non-fic for publication used to occupy.
We had to take Liam’s mobile down yesterday because he’s perfected standing up in the crib. It’s got a funky bend in it that turns it into a base-with-light-and-music-mobile thing, though, so we’ve got it standing on his dresser now like a lamp.
It was nice to go to bed last night with part of the day and my mood salvaged. We finally got most of the coven together to make the coven incense, and it’s divine. The whole house smells fantastic. This is the project we began at Imbolc, pinpointing the three main things our coven works for (protection, healing, and spiritual growth) and then brainstorming ingredients to reflect those things. We tested them one by one to sense energy and scent, and blended three trial batches with slight variations for everyone to test at home on their own and report back. In the end we have thirteen components plus our signature ingredient (real maple syrup!), and last night they all blended beautifully. It went a long way towards soothing the badness of the day away. That’s a sign of success, in my opinion. If the energy released by burning this incense (or simply smelling the mix!) grounds while simultaneously uplifting the spirit, then it’s accomplished a lot of its goal. Now I just need to use it in ritual to get a sense of how it functions there.
We’re back! We had a lovely weekend, but the drive is just so incredibly draining for all three of us. Liam’s not a fan of it either, particularly since he’s teething again. The poor kid has his first real teething rash on his cheeks.
When we got home the place felt so wonderful. (Thanks for taking care of it, Tal!) Liam ran around (well, his version of it) and touched everything, toys and furniture and walls; you could just see him saying, “This is mine! This is mine too! This is all my stuff!” Maggie and Nix came right up to him and rubbed against him or let him pet them oh so gently, and he was thrilled to see them, because my parents’ cats are more of the “I’ll sit over here and watch you from a safe distance” or “I’m hiding under the bed till you’re gone” types. And after a moderately belated dinner and a bath, he went right to sleep and slept through till quarter to seven this morning, thank goodness; we were worried that he’d wake up every couple of hours. But he didn’t, and he’s in a wonderful mood today.
We came home with more chocolate than I know what to do with. Well, I do know what to do with it: put it in my sweets tin in my office where it will lurk, waiting for the time when I need it. And it’s all really good chocolate too. Liam got clothes in his Easter basket, although there is one chocolate bunny I will have to eat for him that was presented to him by a fan.
I’m so impressed by how Liam ate while we were away. For dinners, he pretty much shared what we were eating. For example, that first night he had osso bucco and polenta with us, and Sunday night he shared our Easter dinner of roast beef, roasted carrots and potatoes with gravy, plus his own personal hors d’oeuvre of apples and squash sprinkled with cinnamon. He’s discovered the joys of couscous as well. (He did not, however, share the brownies, or the pie, or the chocolate macadamia nut cookies. He did share his grandparents’ Cheerios and a couple of slivers of my fresh strawberries, though.)
We have wonderful pictures of Liam at the farm, and at the warplane heritage museum too. I’ll post them at some point when I have time. This week is already two days gone, and the schedule for the next six days is already set.
Ah, Easter weekend, where we drive through thunderstorms to eat gourmet food, enjoy wonderful company, and generally exhale in a huge tension release. Naps all round! CBC on the television! Evil delicious snacks on the counter!
(Seriously. There’s a pound of butter in the Tupperware container of brownies alone.)
Liam has enjoyed osso bucco and polenta with everyone else our first night here. He was asleep by the time we got to the spaghetti bolognese last night, though, and thank goodness for that because he was so off his schedule on Thursday that he didn’t go to bed until nine, and woke up at 1.30 to play and didn’t go back to sleep till 4.45. Argh. But he travelled in the car wonderfully, and the only real dent in the plan was that he refused to eat the beef stew I’d made him for lunch, so all he had was lots and lots of fruit for lunch and his snack, along with some water and rice rusks.
On yesterday’s walk we saw a rabbit, and Liam is fascinated by the three big Maine Coon cats here (or rather, by the two who will stay in the room if he’s there; Cordelia’s playing the prima donna and not showing her pretty little face during the day). The stairs interest him, but he hasn’t taken a shot at them yet.
Today we’re going to a local farm to look at animals! It was misty and drizzly yesterday, but today is gloriously sunny, so we’re looking forward to that.
It feels good to be here. Even though Liam’s thrown off for a whole day after travelling, it’s worth it. I hope everyone else is having as enjoyable an Easter weekend as we are.
[reposted from the Great mySQL Disaster of 2006)
HRH went out gaming tonight. I sat down at the computer once he was gone and I’d tidied up a bit: handled email, checked news, did a bit of research, and wished I could be working on Swan Sister, but I wasn’t in the mood to slog through the warmup only to be ready for bed when I reached the point where things flowed. Nor was I particularly keen on opening one of the other novels to work on one of those, because I wanted to do something finite.
So I pulled out the story postcards I had. Alas, I’d used all of them: they all have big orange checkmarks on them.
But I remembered one that I hadn’t used, one that’s somewhere in a manila envelope or a file of stuff that was on my bulletin board by my desk in the last apartment. Longtime readers will remember the story postcard Neil Gaiman sent me with a phrase about a never-ending line of people written on it with a fountain pen filled with green ink. I made rather a fuss about it at the time.
So I opened a new Word file and wrote a 1,143 word short story beginning with that image of a long line of people snaking off into the distance.
It doesn’t have a title yet. At the moment the file is called “Gaiman postcard”.
Whether I like it or not tomorrow is immaterial. I like it now, both for what I did with it (plain, simple) and how I wrote it (I just did it, in a single hour).
And HRH has just come home with ice cream, since I’d indicated a desire to have some earlier only to discover that he’d finished it last night.
No, wait, I think I have a title: Next. Oh, yes; that’s perfect. That makes it 1,144 words, thank you very much.
Now: ice cream, and bed.
~ Originally posted by Autumn at February 9, 2006 11:27 PM
Comments:
Way to go!
Posted by: Kino Kid at February 9, 2006 11:46 PM
Hey, I’m just reading your post on NaNoEdMo! How’s that for synchronicity?
Posted by: Owldaughter at February 9, 2006 11:47 PM
Er. What I ought to have said first is, Thank you!
Posted by: Owldaughter at February 9, 2006 11:50 PM
Woohoo! Go Arin!
Posted by: Ceri at February 10, 2006 09:09 AM
Full of awesome!
Posted by: Maia AP at February 11, 2006 02:35 AM
Last night’s concert was excellent — very tight. Fantastic work from everyone, particularly our section of Cello-Playing Mice. When things go well, the evening always flys by and the two hours are over before I know it. Although my legs falling asleep from the wooden chair being just a smidge too high were a definite indication of time passing. Halfway through the symphony in the second half, I rearranged my legs so that they were stretched to the left and crossed at the ankles instead of feet flat on the floor, one knee on either side of the cello. Unorthodox, but it helped for a bit. Thanks again to everyone who came out — it always means a lot to me.
The Random Colour meeting was terrific as well, particularly since we ended up working out music not once but twice for one song, and acing the second (up until the part where we have to modulate at the bridge, that is; we decided to work on that at home since I had to flee to eat and change for the other concert). I’m impressed with how well we worked together, particularly for those who’d never played with others before (or played their instrument!). The girls have decided that bowing the cello sounds pretty darned cool in the second song we worked, so I’ll mess about with that in the other songs at home to see what happens.
Good thing we’d casually looked at amps and pick-ups earlier, because as soon as Ceri started tuning her sax both the stringed instruments realised that we’d need to amp simply in order to be heard. My inexpensive cello pick-up is already on order; I doubt it will be here for the next rehearsal this weekend, but then, I won’t have an amp either, so that’s fine. I won’t be able to get the baby amp, either, until HRH’s EI snarl gets worked out, which, gods willing, will be this week. The girls are meeting every weekend from now till Invisible’s mid-June concert in order to really ace a couple of songs; we have less time than they did for their first gig, and we’ve chosen harder songs (enthusiastic overacheivers that we are).
Today: errands; more edits; some green witch work.