Category Archives: Diary

I Am Mighty

To my astonishment, the publisher has agreed to give me to give me pretty damn near what I’d asked for fee-wise for this anthology project. Not only that, the deadline has been extended so I’m not requiring my contributors to cram this into the next two weeks, and I don’t have to try to collate and edit the entire book by an equally insane deadline. Huzzah!

I also finished my first draft of yesterday’s assignment and it’s off waiting for the editor (a different editor, that is; ooh, the glamour of freelancing) to look at it. I also practised the cello. (Treble clef; good gods. Lots of it. And lots of little notes to a single bow in the Hebrides overture. Eep. The 7/8 handles well in that range, I have discovered.) I even tried changing the two lower strings on the 7/8 to the ones my teacher lent to me to see if that improved the projection and balance on the lower end, but they sounded scary and vaguely piano-like and the tension was completely out of whack with the upper two, so I changed them back. The luthier has given me an appointment for next Friday night, so that’s good. (In more ways than one: I’d originally asked for tomorrow night, but if this is indeed the Martian Death Plague, as the unfortunately experienced Mousme suspects, tomorrow night wouldn’t have happened.)

And now, because I have edited a new submission and one of the existing ones, I have accomplished more than what I set out to accomplish today, and I am going to go lie down. Because wow, do I feel woozy.

In Brief

I went on my first cool assignment yesterday. I tried to throw what I could together once I got home, but it’s not going as well as I’d hoped and so I need some of today to finish it off. You will know something about it later today.

The in-progress anthology project I took on as editor (which is not, in fact, one of the cool things I was squeeing about on Tuesday) is proceeding apace. Two-thirds of the people I contacted have responded, most in the affirmative and the others to tell me they’re thinking it over, and I already have one submission in hand. I rock.

The bad news is I am very, very sick. I had a sore throat yesterday and the chills, but by last night I was in complete misery. Fortunately orchestra was cancelled due to the storm, which took the difficult decision to cancel my own attendance out of my hands. I slept awfully, which is to say not at all, and got up around two-thirty to take two ASA tablets. They eased the swollen, painful throat and headache, but landed on an empty stomach and proceeded to make me utterly nauseous as well.

This morning I am shaky and still ill and the golf-ball-sized swelling of my soft palate around my lower sinuses burns every time I try to swallow, and lurks malevolently in between. HRH took pity on me and left late for work in order to be the one to drop the boy off with the caregiver, because I can’t stand up long enough to get to the car and drive. I have a long list of things to work on, none of which include Orchestrated, and because of the freelance assignment I missed practising yesterday as well as orchestra so I need to rearrange things in order to make sure I do at least some simple cello work today.

So I’m going to make more chamomile tea and get to it. Or maybe I’ll go with peppermint, made with mint from Ceri’s garden.

Boy’s Post Up, Plus A Brief Weekend Review

I finally published the 43-month post for the boy, and backdated it. It had been sitting there for quite some time, only missing photos. So that’s done.

Other than that, well, I finished knitting my slippers and had fun felting for the very first time. The slippers fit my feet fine around the foot, but ended up two inches too long and pointy instead of rounded. I suspect I misread part of the pattern that said ‘knit till 22 cm long;’ I measured from the start of the piece instead of from the last increase, thereby missing about three or four inches of knitting. I’ll try again with the different measurement to see what happens. In the meantime they are warm, which is what I wanted, and after cutting two inches off the not-supposed-to-be-pointy toes and seaming them shut, they’re fine for home use. Although I took them to my cello lesson yesterday and my teacher thought they were great, and has asked for the pattern. So. Also, the machine felting was much more exciting than it should have been. (I take my fun where I can get it.)

I still have the 7/8; I called to make an appointment for the adjustments and the evaluation of the slice/scratch/cut thing last Saturday and the people who I needed to look at it weren’t there. I’ll call them at the Montreal store this week and make an appointment with them for Friday night. Rental is $75 per month for a cello for at least two months, and 70% of the rental fee goes toward eventual purchase of whatever, which is good news. I had a very frustrating cello lesson on Sunday, which I would like to think means I’m plateauing and am about to make some sort of brilliant breakthrough, but I suspect only reflects the general fatigue and frustration of the weekend. We’d been invited out for dinner Saturday night but had to decline due to a previous engagement, which ended up being cancelled by the other person involved two hours before it was supposed to begin, which didn’t do much for my mood this weekend, either. Especially since we’d had a second invitation for Saturday night that we’d also turned down.

On the other hand, the boy had his first official pagan playgroup session yesterday morning (which he is already calling ‘circle’) and had a blast casting the circle with singing and instrument-playing and marching, talking about spring and the return of the sun, planting seeds and making Brigid’s crosses out of pipe-cleaners, then having a snack afterwards. I suspect that he would much prefer something more frequent than once a month.

I’ve finally downloaded iTunes to test-run it as a possible alternative to WMP and purchasing music via eMusic. Other than that, I am generally exhausted, and have had not-nice headaches the past three days. But I ate a piece of chocolate cake for breakfast. So there.

In Which She Apologizes


Dear new guest conductor,

I’m really, really sorry for panicking about the second bassoon part you asked me to play for the L’Arlesienne suite two nights ago at rehearsal. I agree that it was really needed so we could fill in the missing bits, and I was willing to give it a shot on the cello until you handed me the music. I was having a really bad day, and all I saw was multiple flats and tenor clef, and I knew I couldn’t sight-read it. Thank gods for M, who was willing to give it a shot (and pulled it off creditably, too). I’m pretty ashamed of myself, especially because it turned out that I could have done it as the crucial bit she ended up playing in that exposed part was in fact in bass clef and nice relaxed eighth notes. But her intonation while sight-reading is probably more reliable than mine anyway.

Just wanted to say I was sorry. And I should apologize to M again too, who was almost as flustered as I was about the music, even though I probably already apologized to her too many times during and after the rehearsal. I feel awful about it.

But hey, how about that sight-reading of the third movement of Scheherazade? Pretty good, hunh?

Sincerely,
the cellist in the second chair

Done

My latest assignment has been handed in, and I’m exhausted. This one really drained me. I’ve told them that I need to take a couple of weeks off to work on my other stuff; I can’t keep juggling it all.

I can’t face opening Orchestrated right now. I need to walk away from the computer for a bit. I’d start messing about with the lightsaber pattern but I don’t have the correct size DPNs or yarn. I’ll work on my slippers instead.

I wish I could muster up some enthusiasm for orchestra tonight. All I want to do is have a hot bath and go to bed. I’m having a lot of problems managing my energy levels these days, which is mostly fibro-related, and somewhat connected to the weather and the season as well.

Hrm. Taking a couple of Tylenol might help, too.

In Which She Works Through Some Issues

This morning we had an awesome, awesome brunch chez Adam and Karine. The term ‘groaning table’ was invented solely for this morning’s repast. We got there, the boys all ran upstairs and played on their own, we were given excellent coffee and had the blissful experience of having adult conversation while the three boys played elsewhere. Absolutely lovely. I love that the boy is at an age where he can be trusted to play elsewhere with others and not require constant checking-in. We knew things had gone well when the boy broke down when it was time to go, and said at random tearful intervals all the way home, “I want to go back to Samuel and Matthieu’s house now.”

But this post is mostly about last night’s cello lesson.

Holy cello lesson of technical adjustments, Batman! “It may not feel like you’re making progress,” my teacher said reassuringly, “but when all this stuff is done you’ll just fly.” And I know I am making progress, because as I clean up one thing another becomes apparent (either caused by the adjustment or revealed hiding behind it) that needs to be addressed. It’s like following a trail of Smarties to a really big prize of some kind.

Speaking of really big prizes: This 7/8 looks like it very well could be The One. It’s the best one I’ve tried out of all seven so far. It’s a bit richer and more intimate than the one I’ve got. Mine is clearer and has better projection (how could it not, it’s freaking humongous, of course the bigger soundbox projects more!), which, if I was playing solo in halls, would be better. But realistically I’m not going to be doing that, am I. The more velvety 7/8 is fine for chamber and orchestral section music. And overall, if it’s in this good a shape now, after a year or so of playing it will have opened up even more. The only problems my teacher confirmed were that (a) the C sting lacks a proper balance with the rest of the strings, (b) the C string lacks quick response, and (c) if the projection could be improved just a wee bit that would be nice, too. (So nice to have my initial assessment of the instrument supported. Go me!) A bit of adjustment plus a different C string would probably do it; she sent me home with a couple of different strings from her hoard to try. She’s going to talk to the luthier about it this week when she goes in to pick up her bow that’s been repaired. The only problem I’ve found otherwise (and just now, yikes) is a too-far-down cut made in the table where the neck is set in; I’m worried it might carry on down the front as a crack. We’ll see what they say.

I played it for my entire lesson. Never even touched my own. This has happened all week in practise, too.

I also had something confirmed for me. My teacher was playing a passage on first the 7/8 then on my 4/4, and I liked both the sounds but in a different way. And she said, “Honestly? You’d have to spend a lot of money to find a 7/8 equivalent in sound production to your cello.” Now, this is something I’ve suspected more and more through this process. My cello is a surprisingly good cello. People with more experience than I do tell me it has excellent tone and projection and balance and is very easy to play. Plus it has had forty years to mellow and develop. It’s just a tad too big for me. And now that the possibility of buying a new 7/8 is becoming more and more real, I’m clinging irrationally to it. Is buying a new 7/8 a bad step? No, not at all; I’m just worried it’s an unnecessary one. Yes, it’s a better quality cello taken in the grand scheme of things, but do my current needs, or those of the near future, require the higher quality cello? Honestly, probably not. Will the 7/8 be better for me technically than the oversize 4/4? Maybe. Might my fibro require a smaller cello in the future? Possibly. Is the oversize 4/4 holding me back? I won’t know until I start playing something else, will I.

Yes, I’m wibbling. Badly. All the shopping and research was fun, but the big step of buying it is so fraught with responsibility. It won’t be a bad investment. It’s just a lot of money for a maybe. (On the other hand, I’ve just remembered that this is temporary anyway; the real upgrade in quality will come with the repair of the Mystery Cello some years down the line when my cousin and I have the money. So there, wibbling. This isn’t the end of the line; this is a step in the correct size direction. Stop second-guessing yourself about this nebulous thing called ‘quality.’ Do you like the sound? Yes. Is it better or worse than the one you’ve got? Neither, really; it’s different. Is it a complete loss of money? No, because resale value will be high, and you’ll probably succeed in selling your current 4/4 anyway at some point. So.)

On top of all that, I feel like I’m cheating on my 4/4. I feel like I’m being disloyal to fifteen very, very good years.

Argh!

As an aside: My teacher pulled out the bow that came with the 7/8 kit and said, “Aren’t you going to play with this?” “No,” I said, “it’s dull and stiff.” “That’s odd,” she said, “they’re usually a bit springier than wooden bows.” “Oh, no, this isn’t carbon fibre,” I said, “it’s fibreglass.” “Fibreglass? Why didn’t you ask for something good? When you take things home on trial you can be like a kid in a candy store: ‘I’ll take one of those, and one of those, and maybe some of this…”. Duly noted. Because eventually, I’m going to need to replace this cracked bow, too….

Five Random Things Make A Post

1. Yes, I know I haven’t done the monthly Liam post. They take up a stupid amount of of time and energy and brainpower, none of which I’ve had lately.

2. Why does every outing with the boy have to be ruined by the five minutes at the end between turning off the car and getting in the front door?

3. Liam pointed at the cedar tree by the front steps on our way to this morning and said, “Look, snow!” “That’s not snow,” I said, “that’s ice crystals that have formed because the very moisture in the air is freezing.” And then we had a talk about Frozone from The Incredibles and how he needs water in the air to make ice. Freaking cold, yes, but everything is white and strangely beautiful. Sun would make it even more beautiful, but not for long because the frost would melt. Also, I saw the seaway steaming on the way home from dropping him off yesterday morning. It’s that cold. (Yay for sublimation! Science is cool!)

4. Two inches into my garter stitch lap blanket, I want to rip it all back and do it in stockinette stitch instead.

5. There is an inch of ice on the bottom of the boy’s bedroom windows. And I don’t mean measured from the top to the bottom, I mean from the window out into the room. Also, there is frost forming on the inside of the back door. (I am Canadian; I talk about the weather a lot.)

And a bonus:

6. Irony is doing your errands in the West Island and driving right past the bank branch where you need to deposit (in person, therefore during business hours, therefore when the car it at your disposal) the US cheque that arrived in your mailbox while you were out.