So Much for Promises

I did not return with an update within the allotted time period I set for myself. Oops. Instead, I had a few social obligations (!) to attend to. It's good to have friends. New friends that I met just recently. Even knowing that I still possess the ability to do so is a wonderful notion. (I began to doubt it, actually, given the cold, repressed, unfriendly 20-something set in West Michigan.)

So, here is a list of the places I attended/sights I saw acting as a tourist with my family this past holiday week:

• Metropolitan Museum of Art. Probably the most enormous all-encompassing museum I have ever attended.
• The Pursuit of Happyness. I was on the edge of my seat. It is, indeed, a financial nail-biter.
• The New York Transit Museum. What a great place! They have subway cars from 1904 on display, as well as every model since then!
  
• The Color Purple. Honestly, this musical had me close to tears in the end. And I was skeptical, as I am a big fan of the movie.

My family certainly traveled more than this, but I was working for three days during which they were in town. So that's that. I definitely enjoyed this chance to step out of my normal routine. It was a fun few days.

I am not in the mood to create complex sentences. Time for bed, obviously.

Phew.

It's been a crazy few days.

My family just left, and my apartment feels remarkably empty. I am tired, as expected. Nevertheless, I am due at the bookstore in an hour.

J.'s return is nearing, which is a happy thing. I think he returns on Saturday, but probably late. That's, what, three and a half days from now? I think that's fairly manageable. Enough time to recharge my batteries at least.

While this post is brief out of necessity, never fear! I will return with a full update of my goings-on in the next day or so.

Envy

I may as well come right out and admit it. I am SO ENVIOUS of everyone who has or will travel home for the holidays this year. At the moment, I really, really, REALLY miss my ability to travel as I once did, back in the day when I owned a car. Alas, I am here in this city for the foreseeable future, and I'm afraid I might be trapped here forever and ever.

J. meanwhile is back in Louisiana, catching a nice break from the insanity that is New York in Christmastime. It's pure craziness.

In order to ensure that I will not spend the Blessed Holiest of Holidays on my own, my family is coming to stay in my teeny tiny one bedroom apartment for five days. I'm afraid that this will not afford much of a break for me, as I will undoubtedly be asked to take part in some of the tourist action, which I find exhausting. Not to mention sharing a shoe box with four other adult sized people (and one scared kitty cat).

Grumble, grumble. (Insert more commentary on how much I hate Christmas here.)

Cross-over Post!

It's like Buffy and Angel, or Stargates SG-1 and Atlantis. Sometimes you see cross-over episodes in which the plot occurs between the two series, or one moment is reflected from two separate points of view over the course of two episodes. Or when a character from one series visits the other.... I think you get the point.

In this case, I am posting the following here and here.

Top Five Reasons Why It Sucks that Lorn's Computer is Broken:
5. Making treks to Library to use the internet is not as fun as it ought to be. This I know from experience, and I know Lorn realizes too.
4. Financially speaking, purchasing a computer (new or used) is a serious burden when you're a poor student.
3. Computers are necessary. These days, to be without a computer is to have half of your brain missing.
2. She's my No. 1 commenter. My comments will remain at zero far more often than I'd like.
1. Less frequent blog updates.

There you have it. A healthy mix of concern and selfishness, in one easy top five list.

Open Letter

Dear Hostess of the Party I Attended on Saturday Night,

Never before have I felt so utterly uninvited and third-wheel-ish than I did at your place this past weekend. Where I come from, when one invites party-goers AND their "significant others" it is customary to treat those "others" with respect. After all, you DID invite me.

Unless , of course, you wanted me there to witness your overt sexual advances on my boyfriend. In which case, you were successful. You did a laudable job of edging me out of conversations with him, and asking extremely rude questions geared toward making me look like a horrible girlfriend (i.e. "is he ALLOWED to have another drink?"-- as though I have any need to have control over how many drinks has).

And that final straw of waiting until the very SECOND my back was turned, so as to usurp him to another room, whereupon you LITERALLY threw yourself on him? You did a great job on that one, too. It was the highlight of my evening to find myself solely in the company of those pretty, empty and cold people you surround yourself with in order to feel better about the person you have turned yourself into. And then, to walk into the hallway to see you two laughing it up? Now that's a memory that will stick with me.

Better still is that when I made my move to leave just then, you made sure to plant yourself in our presence during what should have been (and obviously needed to be) a private conversation. And your mockery of his decision to stay and let me go home alone... well, words can't describe.

It's not that I'm possessive. Not in the very least. Never in my life have I purported to have any type of influence on J.'s behavior. He is a grown man, and can do as he pleases. And this is evidenced, above all else, by his decision to hang out with you all night long and sleep with you in the end. And that was his decision to make, an understanding that we'd made a long time ago.

Congratulations. In your mind, you've won the prize. Too bad it doesn't come with his emotions attached. Because, well, that's one thing you can never take from me, no matter what bullshit tricks you pull.

Yours in absolute disgust,
Day

p.s. For future reference, there are less sneaky and underhanded people in the world, some of whom would be happy to let you sleep with their significant other, as you put it. There are two rules for this, in my book. A. You should be a super cool and awesome human being to both parties, and B. if you want to sleep with an already-engaged person, at least make it a good time. I mean, please. At least try to be actively involved!

Christmas Hell

As you know, I'm a Scrooge. I don't do Christmas, and I don't enjoy shopping or thinking up gifts for people. I don't like the mass murder of pine trees and I HATE Christmas music.

This year, however, I've been forced into celebrating in two ways:

1. My mother, father, sister and Grandmother are coming to visit for the stupid Holidays. Somehow, I feel as though I should buy things for them, since they're loading up their preverbial sleigh to visit me, by which I mean, schlepping useless and unwanted gifts through airports.

2. We're having a holiday party at work on Wednesday evening. I was badgered into doing the employee gift exchange (nauseatingly called the "Secret Messiah"). Trouble is, I was assigned to purchase a gift for our Merchandising Manager, a hildrious 24-year old Puerto Rican gay man who does Feng Shui in his off hours.

So, I am requesting some help on this matter. What should I get him? He has impeccable taste, dresses extremely well, and, as a final nail in the coffin, will most likely be critical of whatever he recieves.

I cannot imagine a more difficult task than this. Suggestions? Please?

Unexplained Absence

It's been a busy week, again. I'm feeling rather worn out and I can also feel a cold or some sort of sickness coming on.

It's about time that I "fixed" my life in a way that is conducive to all I want to be and do in the future. Namely, I need to stop working so much. It only tuckers me out and renders me completely exhausted for evening practice.

I still don't understood how fledging musicians in big cities do it. How does anyone manage to work a full time job and still have energy for that three hour practice session, on top of maintaining a relationship and attempting to become more well-read and learned, and start a solid, maintainable exercise plan to boot?

My solution for the time being is to be extremely poor and have three days off a week during which to fully engage in music-related activities (like study scores, learn to play the keyboard a bit better, do some Finale-ing). However, there are obvious kinks in the plan. For one, I cannot afford lessons at all, so how am I supposed to network? And how and when do I recieve an accurate assessment of what I'm up to, horn-wise? How does my upper register get any better without any outside advice?

Fortunately, I have three positive statements about this whole mess:
A. This Monday is my last day at the internship. Working for free for two extra days a week is keeping me far too busy. It's really getting in the way of my ability to focus and practice well.
B. A woman who plays fourth horn in Mahler III asked the four younger players in the section if we'd like to get together and play some horn quartets, which may or may not grow into a serious, regular thing. If it doesn't, I'm so excited even to be asked to play. I have my fingers crossed that this works out, even if it's just one day a week to hang out and play with some people.
C. All of the afore mentioned issues most likely relate to a common experience of those who move to a city with hopes of learning something and playing a fair amount. Obviously, it would be better to go to school and establish connections there. But I'm sure that people do this on a fairly regular basis, and I'm glad to have this experience. It's definitely information that I can pass on to my hopefully eventual horn studio on day.

Also, the performance for Mahler III is this evening. Playing such a huge piece with a community orchestra certainly does keep me on the edge of my seat. But it's been fun nonetheless.

I'm hoping for a nice, smooth alcoholic beverage tonight. Fortunately, beer might be had with the horn section after the concert, and J. has an open invite to party it up with a bunch of vocalists, pianists and strings. Ha. We'll see how that goes!

Why I Do Not Cook

Last week I made garlic redskin mashed potatoes. Surprisingly, they tasted pretty good! Unfortunately, we had leftovers, which is not as good because we do not have a microwave, and somehow, the foods that turn into leftovers are incredibly difficult to reheat without the option of nuking them (rice, for example).

My uncle had a great idea- fry them! They turn into mashed potato patties, which are actually pretty tasty, if you've never had them before. So, I coated the bottom of the skillet with lots of soy butter (which incidentally comes in a little plastic tub). I then added the potatoes, grouped into four patties.

I turned the heat up and fussed with the potatoes, trying to solve whatever issue it was that wasn't making them crispy on the bottom, and therefore congealed into one mass that I could easily flip. So concentrated was I on the potatoes that I didn't even notice that I hadn't removed the soy butter from the oven top!

The plastic had melted all over the side of the skillet and the butter inside was turning liquidy. Promptly, I turned off the heat and removed the skillet-- when I did so, the plastic from the butter had created a big long string of plasticy-ness, which stretch about 6 inches between the two.

Not only did I destroy the container for the soy butter, but my attempt at reheating the potatoes wasn't at all successful. What I ended up with was a semi-ruined skillet, a useless soy butter container, one less tupperware (for butter storage), and extremely buttery, barely heated leftover mashed potatoes.

I'm here! It's me!

For whatever reason, that title has become a popular subject line in emails between my friend BJK and myself. I thought it appropriate, because I haven't been here in awhile. By "here" I mean at my computer desk, typing at my computer.

I've had a busy last six days. Here are the highlights, and lowlights, in no particular order:

• My lost check issue is solved. Just for the record, though, the situation turned out far worse then originally thought. To make a long story short, I had TWO checks that hadn't been cashed, and the management canceled the wrong one, leaving me with no money the day before rent was due. It was all sorted out in the end, but that whole situation was cause for much stress and unhappiness. (You might ask-- why on earth would you not have cashed the penultimate check? The answer: because I am too poor to guarantee that if I put a paycheck in the bank in the middle of the month, the money will still be there for rent purposes. Thus is the sad state of my life, financially speaking.)

• I attended my first concert in Carnegie Hall. As an intern for OCO, I had literally the most acoustically balanced seat in the house. Pretty awesome!
  

• My mother was here for the weekend, and I am worn out. Among lots of activity, we saw a movie at an artsy/independent theater near Lincoln Center. Most unfortunately, this was a British movie. I hate British movies. What a waste of 2.5 hours. The rest of the weekend was great, though.
  

• In accordance with the above, I am now the proud owner of a new pair of Doc Martin boots. My feet are happy.

• My uncle will be in town for a conference this week. We're going out to dinner this evening (hopefully in his car). I am quite looking forward to it.

• I have enabled spell check on both Blogger and Hotmail, and it becoming clear that, as a result of computers, I have completely forgotten how to spell any word that contains the letter "u."
  

That is all.