I have officially Arrived. Words from a book I wrote have been appropriated and implied to be original on someone’s Myspace page.
The punctuation was reproduced incorrectly in the pair of sentences; all the possessive apostrophes have vanished.
I feel all warm inside, and part of the big sloppy network of pop culture.
1:53:
I don’t know if there’s some sort of odd musical karma happening today, but when I set my entire mp3 collection to play at random while I work this afternoon I certainly didn’t expect to hear this much Random Colour from the April 2006 gig (AKA as the There Is No Fast show). Half an hour ago it was Hazy Shade of Winter; now it’s Insensitive. (Both of which were excellent, I must add.)
1:56:
Followed by the original Rock’n’Roll Radio. Heh. We play it faster. Also, we have a cello, which automatically makes it better.
2:45:
How is it that no matter how often I clean the bathroom, it’s dirty again a day later?
2:53:
And here’s Poor DeeDee from Invisible. Yes, this computer is currently plugged in to a giant music karma wave.
2:56:
Because the lilacs along our back fence were massacred in high summer, there are no blooms at all this year. I miss them terribly. However, every once in a while today, the wind drifts through the house and gifts me with the scent of someone’s sun-warmed lilacs down the street. It’s really lovely. I wandered all over the house tracking it down and opening windows as far as they would go to entice more of it in.
3:45:
And there’s ADE (Invisible’s version, that is). Something’s up, I tell you. I have over 20 GB of music (holy cats, when did THAT happen — I will have to weed it out, because I know there are doubles thanks to the odd crash last winter), over half of it classical and scores… and today I just keep hearing tracks from the April 2006 gig. In three hours I’ve had some solo cello, a track or two of string quartets, a symphony movement, some Enya, a handful of soundtrack pieces, three Rasputina songs, two Tori Amos, an Alice Cooper track, and five or six gig clips. It’s just eerie.
4:00:
Orchestra tonight!
Miss my scratch pads? Look what’s back. It saves me time, and also doesn’t terrify my gentle readers by presenting them with torrents of posts.
12:40:
I’ve begun transferring the gig recordings to the computer in order to pass them along to Scott, who will perform the long task of separating them into tracks and converting them to mp3s. I’ve been dreading this because I was terrified that the recordings didn’t take. Fortunately all three Minidiscs are fine, and everyone’s set has been preserved for posterity. Remember, these are for the bands’ use as learning tools, not public consumption, and so I must dash your hopes for copies, dear readers. Too many rights issues about recording and distributing other peoples’ music without permission.
3:00:
So here I am, back with the dictionary, doing another task for another purpose. There seems to have been some sort of issue that I wasn’t informed about over the past few days, as I’ve received a new version with fixes, but no idea of why they were needed. I’m just a subcontractor, and got things where they needed to be by when I was told that they were required (one in the nick of time according to the deadline I was given, but apparently that was too late as well, from what I can infer now). If no one checked my work until the last minute, assuming everything was okay, or didn’t check until after it was due, that’s beyond my control.
I was really looking forward to relaxing today, letting all the the ongoing/on hold writing I’ve been recently thinking about again brew in the back of my brain as I vegged and had a day off, but apparently that’s not going to happen for another week or two now.
3:41:
Ugh. Finding small things I missed in my many editing passes. Too late to do anything about it now.
3:54:
Right. Now it’s all coming back to me, how I couldn’t change things to make them clearer or more precise. Argh. Some of these are atrocious, and there’s nothing I could or can do. Right.
4:54:
When did Laura Secord chocolates become so tasteless, and of such an unappetising texture? Ew. They’re overprocessed. Gods, I hope the truffles are better, because I bought them as opening/closing night gifts for the rest of the band. (Some theatre customs you just can’t kick, and really, why would I want to abandon such a lovely custom in which I give things to people as a thanks for sharing time and energy, and to spoil them a little?)
5:53:
I’d forgotten how hard it is to work at home. I’ve done more cleaning today than I’ve done in weeks, in order to step away from the computer and clear my head. I remembered today that I had Magic Erasers under the sink, and scrubbed down all the walls that have been recently defying my damp cloth. I also cleaned mirrors, and a few windows.
Anyway: two down, seventeen to go tomorrow and Thursday.
8:03:
Just preparing to shut down and there are emergency emails. Terrific. So much for having an hour to myself tonight and getting to bed early.
8:20:
Erm… the fire they want put out doesn’t seem to exist. I can’t find the words they need replaced in the version of the file I have anywhere.
9:05:
Crossed wires, and formulas not accurately adding things up. Sigh. Clarification… except now things don’t match in a different way. I’m working in a parallel file for now, and flagging my edits.
9:24:
I didn’t realise how much I needed and wanted two days to do absolutely nothing until I couldn’t do it.
9:29:
A new version of the file received, and the work I was piling into a new sheet gets transferred quickly and efficiently. (Bonus: I can fix a handful of the little things I caught in passing this afternoon!)
10:14:
Done? I’ve asked it to be checked at the other end, but as far as I can tell I’ve responded to the emergency requests within two hours, including (and despite) technical issues. *pats self on back*
We went out this morning to buy some new jeans for HRH, because I’m the one who has to look at him, and well-fitting jeans are infinitely preferable to the ones that are a size too large, and then we wandered around the local mall, just having a relaxing time looking at things like fountains and trees and patches of sun that shine through the skylights. I bought Liam a secondhand Finding Nemo game for us to play together on the DS (congratulations, Liam, your very first video game!), and HRH and I picked up a secondhand Goblet of Fire Xbox game to play together. That was one of the original reasons for giving him the Xbox and a second controller as an anniversary gift a few years ago, after all: so we could play together. We never have, because most of the games he’s interested in are one-person, and the ones we’ve found so far with a multi-player option don’t interest me. Apart from that, I got none of the books I went in for because they were all out of stock, despite having verified the store stock online.
While wandering I found an awesome short black skirt that would complement the corset. It looked fantastic on, and fit terribly well. Did not buy it. It was, erm, very short. Even with a pair of full-length tights under it, it was not conducive to cello-playing.
Rehearsal last night was lots of good, even though most of us were tired and everyone blanked or tripped up at some point. I’d sliced the inside of the first joint on my left index finger while opening the new keyboard box yesterday (the only thing worse than a paper cut is a cardboard cut, especially in a tender and frequently-used place like that), then proceeded to further slice it open again on a string while sliding during a shift last night. I felt mildly foolish, particularly since it was minutes after Mousme’s dramatic spatter pattern incident. Hers was more serious; it’s not like there’s blood involved in mine, just several layers of skin open to the air and metal of the strings, and it stings like someone is dripping acid into it when I wash it or accidentally touch it to something. I am investing in some of that liquid skin sealant stuff this afternoon; I don’t care how expensive it is. Metal strings and open wounds do not play well together, no matter how well-cleaned they are.
Thanks in advance to everyone planning to come to tonight’s invitational gig, and to everyone who wanted to come but was prevented by time, geography, or previous plans. We know you’ll be there in spirit. We intend to have a band-load of fun.
Tired of not being able to sift out my cello-based journal entries, I decided to make a category for it and start sorting through posts. Then I decided to do the same for books, and for music. Because, you know, I don’t have enough to do. (I appear to often mention books and music in the same post. I am sure you are absolutely shocked.)
Poked abut Bureau en Gros this morning while HRH did some photocopying and came out with a new keyboard (requires some getting used to, because not only is it an ergo it’s peaked in the middle, so I’m learning not to move my hands too far and to really thwack the spacebar), and a new wireless card for the laptop (it works, except all the networks around here are locked, which is fine because I bought it for use in public places anyhow). Both on sale/at decent prices, too, so yay me. Then we went to Services Canada for the boy’s SIN.
My two-volume Oxford dictionary arrived on Wednesday, so I came home from my last day of work and had the pleasure of opening it.
Rehearsal Wednesday night was great in that I didn’t walk out of orchestra hating myself. When I’m actually playing the right notes, I like my intonation very much and my expression is decent, too. I lost focus not long after break, but I forgave myself for the stupid mistakes I was making because hey, tired; it’s not like I suck all the time. The entire section is sounding like a unit, which is always pleasant, too.
Yesterday was frustrating because HRH, Liam, and I were looking forward to a family day once he’d helped clear out the apartment downstairs for the floor people to lay the linoleum over the new floor he and the landlord had laid this week. Landlord and HRH started work at 7, were done by 8. The floor people were supposed to show up at 9. They showed up somewhere around 11, and took lunch at 12. We couldn’t really go anywhere because our garage was wide open with all the downstairs apartment’s stuff in it and the driveway. Because they started late, the floor people didn’t leave till fiveish, not noon as we’d expected. You can imagine how impressed HRH and I were, when we had planned to have the entire afternoon to knock about once Liam woke up from his nap. At least our landlord agreed to hang around for an hour and a half while we went out to ai731‘s open house at her art studio. It would have been nice to be able to relax the way we’d hoped to, though. There’s nothing either of us hates more than hurrying up to wait.
General note to all who have borrowed our Slings & Arrows DVDs: season three comes out July 3rd. Yes, I have pre-ordered it.
Gig tomorrow night!
Pandora has been forced to cut service to any ISP not registered in the US, and this extends to Canada effective May 16.
Not a happy email to come home to.