Category Archives: Diary

Resolution

Rehearsal last night was gruelling. We just didn’t seem to be completely there; all a bit off, not listening to one another, the usual “I’m tired” symptoms. I sat next to someone who did his CEGEP degree in music performance… and I was better than he was. At least I obeyed tempo markings and dynamics. My old stand partner has moved up to sit next to our principal cellist. I’m already sitting closer than I was last concert, but that’s by attrition! With a summer off, however, and two hours of practice a day, I think I can deserve a second chair. I know I’m better than I was when we began; I want to improve even more. And you now what? As much as I love Beethoven and Mozart, I miss Bach. I’m looking forward to getting comfortable with JSB again this summer.

I had the strangest dream last night: I woke up to Stuart McLean and Tom Allen sitting in my old bedroom, and they told me about a writing exercise where if I wrote a thirty-page piece, and if I pledged ten dollars, my company would match it and then CBC would double-match it. The topic was something about Asian educational deprivation.

I told you it was strange. What was stranger was that I didn’t think it odd that these two CBC hosts would be sitting in my old bedroom, chatting until I woke up.

Bits

I’m having a lovely taste of what this summer might be like. I have today off, since I took a co-worker’s shift on Monday. It’s sunny; I have all the windows open. I read a whole book. (Witch Boy, by Russell Moon. Odd.) I doodled about on my laptop. I played my cello for two hours straight. (Much black stuff came off onto my fingertips. Ew. But wow, what a workout. I’m looking forward to keeping this up.) I walked to the pharmacy and did some postal stuff I’d been meaning to do.

I feel fantastic. And I still have a couple of hours before orchestra.

I also moved the coffee table out of the middle of the living room. It just seemed like the thing to do. It’s almost as if with more room in here, I’m in a better mood. No, it doesn’t make sense. Without the table, though, I feel more relaxed, less stressed, less shut in, I suppose. And there’s room for me to lie down on the floor with the laptop, or to set up my cello without moving a bunch of stuff around. When I was a teenager I used to move my room around when I felt like it; it gave me a sense of control over my environment and the freedom to move physical furniture around to reflect my mental furniture. It’s amazing how different life can seem just because you’ve switched the positioning of things around you.

MIA Resolved

I got my music folder back!

Yay!

The fire alarm went off this morning. Twice. I’m in a surprisingly good mood, regardless. Despite wrist pain (rehearsal was intense, but I walked out feeling much better about myself than I had in weeks. Practice actually does help. Wow.), back pain (no surprise there), and the knowledge that I have an eleven-hour day ahead of me… I’m remarkably chipper. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I had breakfast with friends (what else do you do when the fire alarm has you all up at an ungodly hour?) and that one of the stand-offish store cats jumped on my lap to cuddle this morning. It’s sunny, too, which always helps!

Blogger Insider

Kate sent me her Blogger Insider questions, and I actually answered them the day I got them. All but the last one, that is, which I’ve been mulling over. In true Autumn fashion, I’ve not directly answered it, but sort of answered beside it. Here you are:

1. What’s the most bizarre instrument you can play (e.g. musical saw, noseflute, etc.)?

Caveat Number One: I’m boring. Caveat Number Two: I rarely have the urge to try something unconventional. Hence, I think the most exotic instrument I play is the harp. And I certainly don’t play it often or well. It’s big, heavy, and hurts my back.

I bought a tambourine recently; that’s a bit odd. Isn’t it?

2. What’s your favorite spot in Canada?

Sigh. Prince Edward Island. It’s so tiny I thought I might be able to get away with saying the whole province, but if I have to be more specific, Cavendish Beach. But it has to be deserted. Just me, sun, red sand, waves, and a good book. Sigh once more.

3. What’s your favorite comic book and why?

Argh. Tell me to pick a favourite child, why don’t you. Currently: Promethea. Overall? Dunno. Depends on my mood.

4. Who’s your favorite fiction author and comic book author?

Why are you making me do this? Fiction. Hmm. Who do I buy instantly in hardcover? Connie Willis, Neil Gaiman, Timothy Findley. Dead people who don’t have anything new coming out but I’d buy in hardcover if they were still publishing: Robertson Davies, Charlotte Bronte.

Comic books? A tie between Neil Gaiman and Alan Moore. (According to my shelf of graphic novels.)

5. What’s your favorite song in “Once More With Feeling,” the “Buffy” musical episode?

“R.I.P” stuck in my head the first time I saw it, but upon listening to it over and over, I find Xander and Anya’s song “I’ll Never Tell” is really quite well-written and performed, and is the one that keeps popping up in my brain when I’m distracted.

6. What’s your favorite opera?

Mozart’s Don Giovanni. Followed by a three-way-tie between Donizetti’s La Fille du Regiment, Rossini’s La Cenerentola, and Il Barbiere di Siviglia. (The latter for its delicious mezzo-soprano role, and for the act one finale, if nothing else!)

7. If you could move anywhere in the world, where would it be?

The Borderlands, Scotland.

8. Who’s the one character you can’t stand to see when watching a “Star Wars” movie?

Old series or new series?

New series: Threepio is rapidly rising up the list in the new series. Jar-Jar, of course.
Old series: Boba Fett. Honestly. He’s so overrated. Ep2 sort of redeemed him for me, though. His dad was at least cool. (His action figure is certainly the best one. Is it just me or are the SW:Ep2 figures below standard?)

9. What are your top three totally irrational pet peeves?

Firstly, someone who shall remain nameless putting a margarine container, with the barest sheen of margarine along the bottom of it, back into the fridge. (“I didn’t finish it!”) Actually, that nameless someone putting anything back in the fridge or cupboard with only crumbs or drops left in it.

Secondly, not writing something down on the shopping list if you’ve finished it (or, all right, almost finished it). I don’t eat often, but when I do, I like to have all the fixings there. This will drive me directly to Axe-Murderer status, do not pass Go, do not collect $200.

Thirdly, people standing behind me. In a related vein, people reading over my shoulder. Or, people standing in front of me and conversing with sunglasses on. I hate not being able to see people, and if I can see them, I have to be able to see their eyes.

I have more, if you’d like them. Such as bad editing in a published book. Stupid spelling mistakes. (Especially in my own work, when I’ve proof-read and run a spell-check.) People adopting American short-cut spelling such as lite and donut, and believing that it’s the right way to spell something. Shall I go on?

10. If you could perform any piece of music to a large audience by yourself, what piece would it be?

Ha! Assuming I could perform it with any sort of technical capability and emotional interpretation, pretty much anything by Bach. I remind you all of Caveat Number One (I’m boring), and add the following footnote: as much as I adore performing, I prefer chamber work with a few others. Solo is so… alone. You have nothing to interact with. So actually, my dream would be playing cello in a string quartet program of Beethoven’s String Quartet opus 132 in A minor, followed by Ravel’s String Quartet in F. Rather than performing solo, I enjoy hearing how my line intertwines with a few others. I also enjoy singing quartets or trios more than I enjoy singing alone.

There you have it.

Jean, darling that she is, brought me a whole new bottle of my Secret Weapon from her trip to Plattsburg last weekend. Now I have a bottle for home, and a bottle with a few left to keep at work. No Vanilla Coke, though. She says she’ll try again next trip. Curses! Foiled!

MIA

I discovered something bad yesterday.

I packed up my cello and my music bag to go over to a friend’s house, and my music folder was missing. My beautiful, new, black leather music folder. With my favourite pencil. Oh yes, and all my music with my notes all over it.

Gone.

I had a sinking feeling that was oddly juxtaposed with rising panic. I must have closed it at that horrible rehearsal, then left it on the music stand. I remembered the wooden blocks I put under the back legs of the chair to tilt the seat (thereby reducing the stress on my lower back), which I usually almost forget, but I was so rattled that I forgot my music folder and walked out.

This is bad: I like that new music folder. It was my “I’m a serious musician” folder. Sure, I could go buy another one for 17$, but it’s the principle of the thing. I’ve lost all my music, my fingerings, my bowings, my highlighted key changes.

I do still have the originals (thank the gods!). As soon as I get new music, I photocopy it and use the copies as practice music. I cannot bring myself to scribble on originals, even in pencil. We sign out the music, and have to sign it back in at the end of the season, so it’s good that I stored them in a seperate folder. I can always make more copies, trim them, paste them back to back, and try to recreate my fingerings, and bowings� gods, I want to cry just thinking about it. There was over three months of work in those copies.

Now. We rehearse in an auditorium in a high school. There’s always a chance that someone found my folder the next day and gave it in to the teacher who also just happens to be my conductor after hours. There’s also the chance that some kid found it, kept the folder and tossed the music, or mutilated it in some way then handed it in, or just had fun destroying it all and I’ll never see it again.

The orchestra has this week off, though. I won�t know until next week if someone found it.

In the meantime, I have the originals, and I might as well devote a couple of hours to standing at the copy machines in the library down the street, staring at the wall as the harsh light rolls back and forth, and copy them all again. Which is technically against the law, I suppose, although they’re for private research/rehearsal purposes. It could also be argued that one cello part is nowhere near the full work. In fact, it�s only, what, approximately 1/12th, I think, which hardly qualifies as a major portion of a total full orchestral score.

Does life ever seem futile to you sometimes? You try and try and try, and you never seem to get anywhere?

Dysthymia

Someone told me there was a name for this last summer. It’s taken me this long to look it up.

Dysthymia (aka Dysthemia (sp)): Chronic low-level (of lesser intensity) depressive episodes.

American Description:

A) Depressed mood for most of the day, for more days than not, as indicated either by subjective account or observation by others, for at least 2 years. Note: In children and adolescents, mood can be irritable and duration must be at least 1 year.

B) Presence, while depressed, of two (or more) of the following: poor appetite or overeating; insomnia or hypersomnia; low energy or fatigue; low self-esteem: poor concentration or difficulty making decisions; feelings of hopelessness.

C) During the 2-year period (1 year for children or adolescents) of the disturbance, the person has never been without the symptoms in Criteria A and B for more than 2 months at a time.

European Description:

A chronic depression of mood which does not currently fulfil the criteria for recurrent depressive disorder, mild or moderate severity, in terms of either severity or duration of individual episodes, although the criteria for mild depressive episode may have been fulfilled in the past, particularly at the onset of the disorder. (Ed. note: Well, gosh, that makes me feel better already!)

The balance between individual phases of mild depression and intervening periods of comparative normality is very variable. Sufferers usually have periods of days or weeks when they describe themselves as well, but most of the time (often for months at a time) they feel tired and depressed; everything is an effort and nothing is enjoyed. They brood and complain, sleep badly and feel inadequate, but are usually able to cope with the basic demands of everyday life. Dysthymia therefore has much in common with the concepts of depressive neurosis and neurotic depression. If required, age of onset may be specified as early (in late teenage or the twenties) or late.

Me again. Now, I’m not the kind to dash off and self-diagnose. My osteopath has already told me that there are plenty of nice people out there who can help me with my mental and emotional balance just like she’s helping me with my back. (Speaking of which, I’m spending most of today lying on the living room floor working on the laptop because sitting at the desktop is too painful. Back pain is not helping general moodliness.) I’ve just been brushed off by my GP so often now that I don’t know where to go next, really. A close friend worked with an excellent therapist a couple of years ago and has her name and contact info, but as usual, their time requires money.

Or maybe I don’t need to go that route at all. Maybe all I need is a month or so off, and see if that lets my mind unkink a bit. Perhaps life’s tossing me about in an effort to get me to stop for a while and re-evaluate things. I need to rediscover what’s important. What I like, what I dislike. What’s fun, what’s not fun. Having no opinion for so long, just doing things because it’s on my list of things to do, means I really have nothing to compare my current life with any more.

Irony

Call from Concordia Sports Medicine last night:

“Hi! It’s about your appointment next Thursday.”

“The seven-thirty?”

“Yes. We’re really sorry – we have to cancel it. Your osetopath just had surgery on her elbows.”

What the heck are you supposed to say to that?

“Argh!”

“Has it been long since your last appointment?”

“Well, about five weeks.”

“Ouch! Any problems?”

“My back is going “crunch” in the middle.”

“That sounds bad. Would you like to see another osteopath?”

“Well… I lived like this for months before I saw someone, so I’m not dying or anything. Tell my doctor to not worry and that she needs to heal just like everyone else. If my back gets really bad I’ll call you.”

“Don’t worry, we’ll shoehorn you in somewhere as soon as you call. Thanks!”

Little do they know that I now have a secret weapon: Excedrin Extra-Strength, with acetaminophen, aspirin and caffeine. Somebody who loves me has family that goes to the US. It was a lovely surprise. That plus finding a nice flat spot in the park so I can simultaneously lie in the sun and realign my spine sounds like a terrific idea.

Speaking of border-crossing, Vanilla Coke makes its new debut of the millennium on Wednesday. You know, I’ve never been to Plattsburgh…