Well, I’ve done as much as I can on the ms.; I’m waiting for answers and edits back from two of the four people I queried, due back next Monday, and then it’s back to the publisher. In celebration, I poured myself one of the new Alexander Keith Premium Whites that Ceri and Scott sent home with HRH after he helped set up their new dining table and chairs, and sat down to play half an hour of Metallica. Let me tell you, the #cello 4 line of the Apocalyptica arrangement of “Nothing Else Matters” is what it’s all about. Seriously. Celebrate those ringing tones! Sure, it’s shades of “this is all I do” and the stereotypical arpeggios played by basslines… but in 3/4 time, when you know it’s what drives the song that you’re hearing in your head at the same time, and those ringing tones echoing and lingering even when you’re playing two notes later? Beautiful.

Hmm. This beer is much… milder than I expected. Very light. Possibly too light for my mood. Oh well.

The cello lesson yesterday was all right. I suspect that I jinxed things by pointing out to the online cello community that I’d had a streak of really terrific lessons and theorizing that I’d passed the plateau I’d been struggling to move beyond. My bow hand is creeping back into bad habits and my bow arm is creeping back into wrist-led territory. Well, ten years of bad habits aren’t going to vanish overnight. I think I really prefer Saturday morning lessons; I’m much more relaxed, I’m not rushed because I have to go somewhere else next, and I’m not tired from working. I take what I can get, though. Anyway, by the time I picked the boy up and got home, I had a really bad stomachache for some reason and ended up not eating dinner, which was annoying because I’d been craving spaghetti for two weeks and had finally picked up the ingredients that morning.

I remedied the no-food thing by making a poached then shredded lemon-herb chicken breast with baby lettuces and freshly-grated Parmesan in a wrap for brunch today. Dear gods, so good.

And now, I am decamping to the living room to read, and taking the vase of tulips I cut from the side garden with me. I hope everyone’s having a wonderful Beltane.