Category Archives: Random thoughts

Random thoughts

Easter Sunday

I miss my computer.

I miss windows live writer.  It took WAY too long to put this picture up.

Speaking of, how great IS this picture?  Fat cat wine.  My friend Sarah posted it on my facebook wall to try to cheer me up yesterday.

It sort of worked.  I did pretty well until last night when I just broke down.  I was in the middle of a book on my kindle.  BASTARDS stole my stuff.

Today is better.  It’s just stuff.  My computer files are online even.  I can rebuild.  I also think the books I had on my kindle can be moved to a new kindle.  I will find out about insurance tomorrow.

They took my ALARM CLOCK.  Seriously.  Who does that?  Why take a decade old alarm clock that doesn’t even light up anymore?

How glad am I that most of my electronics are super old and crappy?  Evidently nobody wants CD’s anymore–remember when everybody was getting their CD’s stolen from their cars?  Not anymore!

How glad am I that I had my digital camera with me (diligent attempt at blogging) instead of sitting out somewhere?

How glad am I that the thieves didn’t know that instruments are worth money?  Then again, you can’t just get rid of them…you have to know how to do that.  And these people were evidently NOT smart.

Grr.

I may download live writer to this computer, but not yet.  I also will wait to upload some pictures from my real camera, so here’s one from the phone of this morning’s Easter service.

I played mass at St. Theresa’s in Belleville. It was a nice service and we played a rousing Hallelujah Chorus, among other things.

Yesterday:  we got robbed, then we went to the Cardinals game.  They lost.  There was a one hour rain delay.  We sat near some of the most obnoxious men you have ever met.  Basically it sucked.  Oddly one of the trainers at our gym (not my trainer) was sitting right behind us.  Odd.  I guess it’s a small world.

Today:  church gig followed by a fantastic brunch!  We went to Eau at the Chase Park Plaza for a brunch buffet.  Unlimited mimosas (light on the champagne though…), shrimp and crab, eggs, delicious quinoa salad, meats, cheese, bacon, biscuits and gravy, sausage, potatoes, salad, fruits, and a ridiculous dessert table.  I ate a ton.  Now I am attempting to digest.  It was delicious though, and will last me the rest of the day, most likely.

Tonight:  relax, watch a movie.  I’m actually NOT working out today, which is unusual.  In that I haven’t taken a day off in awhile.  Probably for the best.  I’ve gotten used to feeling sore somewhere on my body at all times.  Is that normal?

Tomorrow:  part holiday (no teaching until evening).  Some phone calls to make about the “incident”.  Probably shopping.  Running.  Cleaning?  The CSI guy said I need to dust more often, that it’s too hard to get fingerprints when it’s dusty.  He was just trying to be helpful, but it made me feel terrible.

Then back to work.  It’s almost May.  Concerts are coming up!

Random thoughts

Burgled

4 Comments

Just a quick stop by. We got robbed yesterday. The thieves took my laptop, the Wii, my kindle, my alarm clock (why??) and a bottle of vodka. Luckily that seems to be all (for instance, not the cat or the instruments), but any amount is too much.

I’ll be back to regular blogging soon I’m sure, but right now I don’t have the proper tools set up. Suffice it to say I am pretty pissed off. It seems they got in through a window in the kitchen that I swear was locked, but perhaps a good shove popped them open. The cops were really helpful though. They took down a report and soon I will have my copy of that.

Happy Easter to all who celebrate. I myself am off to play a service. Here’s hoping today goes better than yesterday.

Auditions, Cat, Random thoughts

Who knew people liked reading about auditions

3 Comments

Wow.  My blog traffic has tripled since I posted “orchestra auditions for non-musicians.”  (If you haven’t read it, check it out.  And SHARE with your non-musician friends and family who think you are either crazy or a failure.)

So what do I do next?  If you are still reading you might notice my topics are all over the place.  Violin, teaching, working out, eating, movies, etc.

But this is my life, this is the life of a musician!  The life of one musician, at least.  I spent many years practicing or working all the time.  And now I have the luxury of some free time, and I’ve dedicated it to MYSELF and my health.  And I discovered a passion for running…well, conceptually at least.  I think that working out and music have a lot in common as far as discipline, scheduling, and delayed results.

I don’t want to just write about music, or about orchestral life, or about “how to win an audition”.  (Honestly, that last one I don’t really know…I have only one a few auditions, and definitely lost more than I’ve won.  Perhaps I can write “how to lose an audition” instead?)  I used to think I would write a book about the life of a freelance musician…maybe I’ll do something like that on my blog in the near future.  Perhaps an improved “Mozart in the Jungle”….

Or maybe all of my {potential} new readers are frightened away by my randomness and great love of my cat?

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Can you believe that is a cat?  And yes, that is part of my purple music stand.  You know what, it’s cool.  I like my blog the way it is.  My parents read it, and Chris reads on occasion, and some of my friends read it occasionally too.  And you are all AWESOME!

But I will do some more posts related to day to day life of musicians so you can share them with your family Smile  I’ll also do posts about my cat, running in the park, my students, and post stalk-y pictures of my trainer.  I know you’ll be pleased.

Auditions, Random thoughts

Musicians in a box

3 Comments

I’m glad so many people liked yesterday’s post on Orchestra Auditions.  I wanted to write something about them because so many of our friends and family are confused about what it is that we do.  Now, the audition post doesn’t really cover that, so I’ll have to write another post later about the day to day life of a performing musician (even though my blog covers MY life, I’m technically not a performing musician at this time, so it would be quite a bit different).

When I was growing up I felt isolated from my peers.  I was an avid reader, I wore thick glasses, and I was a bit of a “know-it-all.”  I also played the violin and piano.  All of these things made me stick out, and when you stick out in school, generally people don’t like you.  I didn’t mind, because I didn’t like them either.  As I grew older I knew I would be leaving my hometown for college and wasn’t planning to look back.  (I also grew taller, got contacts, and became ridiculously-good-looking.) I was very serious about the violin and spent my summers and weekends with other like-minded teenagers, with whom I got along (generally) very well.  I became convinced that non-musicians were just incompatible with musicians.

I went off to college and surrounded myself for the next six years (bachelor’s and master’s degree: musicians are generally VERY well-educated) with musicians.  Other than family and a few select friends from home, everybody I knew was a musician.  We all shared the same problems, we all understood our successes.  It was a very homogenized environment, and at the time I loved it.  Yes, we had our own hierarchy—there were groups of “cool” musicians, those who considered themselves to be better at their instruments than the rest of us, but there were plenty of great people to go around.   Overall college was a fantastic time, though busy and stressful.

After I graduated, I got a job in the Charlotte Symphony.  There I made friends with members of the orchestra, but I was quite a bit younger than most of them, and they enjoyed telling me that quite often.  I felt rather alone.  Luckily I was able to make some friends outside of the symphony through a friend of my sister’s, and spent quite a bit of time hanging out with them. They were generally computer programmers who appreciated free symphony tickets so it worked out well.  This was my first real taste of “normal” folks since school, and the experience was MUCH more positive.  It helped that they had also been “nerds” growing up and had played in their school bands.

But then I returned to Cleveland…and again insulated myself with a musician only crowd.  It was easier, not having to explain our lifestyle, why we got up late (we worked late), why we only worked 20 hours a week (a common fallacy), why we had such dainty wrists (oh, is that just me?), and why sometimes we would cocoon ourselves for weeks on end practicing every spare moment and then become really depressed.

The problem with only having musicians as friends is that it gets a little boring.  Some people love to talk “shop” all the time.  Some people don’t do anything other than practice and go to work.  Some people are emotionally stinted, having spent most of their formative years practicing instead of socializing and learning how to deal with society.  And especially, when you are like me and teach more than you perform…you do get jealous…and tired…of hearing people complain about how awful the guest conductor is this week or how tough it is to have 4 1/2 hours of rehearsal.

But if you branch out from musicians, NO ONE UNDERSTANDS WHAT YOU DO.  And they do want to.  Recently Chris had an audition and I was attempting to explain it to some people.  They were most baffled by the fact that no one had been hired for the position, but their minds were pretty blown by the amount of time he had spent practicing for it (all of his time for over a month).  Few people even understand that a symphony job can be a full-time job!  (I remember the shocked looks on the faces of my extended families when I explained that).

That’s why I entitled this post:  musicians  in box.  We musicians put ourselves in a box.  And we need to take ourselves out of the box and branch out, meet more people, spread our love of music, and become better people for it.

Random thoughts, Running

Week in review (long)

What a long weird week.  It all started (for me) on Sunday morning, very early, for the world’s hottest half marathon.  (not really, but it felt like it).  Let’s remember, I did actually throw up a little.  How awesome am I?

I don’t FEEL awesome.  I feel like the race sucked.  I want a do over.  I thought I’d have that awesome race feeling all week and instead I just felt like a failure.  I guess that’s life?

(I’m going to give you some more of the race pictures if you can make it to the end of this post—you’ll love it.)

After Sunday…came Monday, and Monday sucked more.  Auditions are torture.  I was a little maudlin.

The rest of the week has flown by.  My hamstrings have been ridiculously sore.  I’ve done some great teaching—IMHO.  I even set up the recital date for the kiddos.  It should be a good time!  I am really loving some of my students lately, even when they are super whiny like many of them were yesterday.  It’s okay, I felt whiny too!

I’ve also decided to take the plunge and go with shorts for the rest of the summer.  I have a few more pairs on order, of a few different kinds.  They DO show off a bit more leg, which I am self-conscious about, but I like the coolness.  I’ll just have to deal with it.

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Maybe if I pair them with knee socks?  Or if I had those legs?

Last night Chris and I went to “The King and I” for dinner.  It was a nice dinner out after a long week.  I ate too many noodles, but…oh well!   What’s funny is that even though I feel like I’ve been eating pretty crappy for awhile, I tried on a pair of jeans that had been too small (yes, sometimes I buy clothes small) and THEY FIT!  Guess all that working out is doing something.

I’m writing this while watching “Harry Potter and the Order of Phoenix”.  I tivoed it a few weeks ago.  I am a huge Harry Potter fan!!  I haven’t liked all the movies, but I loved the most recent one, and I cannot WAIT for part II.  I actually don’t care for this movie, but I wanted to watch it anyway.

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That’s also why I’m so random this evening.  I’m distracted.  I’m tired.  I’m waiting to go meet up with friends after the concert, but that’s hard when I don’t attend the concert.  I’m sure it will be a fun time, but for now I’m just decompressing.  And wearing shorts!!

OH!  So I found this on the internets recently–

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I’m not a huge fan of the captions, but it’s ANOTHER cat that looks like the fatness!  Do YOU have a cat that looks like the fatness? Please reply in the comments!

I’ll end this post by giving you a few more race photos–

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And Jen, looking good! Especially the middle one where it looks like she’s whistling…

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She looks so hardcore!  I was referring to her as the ninja runner all day.  Well, all morning, until I become catatonic.

And then there’s Mike (and he knows I looked at these, he looked at mine too, I’m not being stalky…oh, except he may not be a blog reader…should I have asked permission?  Meh, I didn’t ask Jen either…) And it’s totally not fair that he had more pictures—I guess when I’m faster I’ll be ahead of the pack more and get more pictures, right?

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Obviously he was feeling a little better than we were at the end.  I couldn’t even fathom doing a picture at the end with my medal.  Maybe that’s why I’m upset?  That was my favorite picture from Phoenix…it’s on my mantle!

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Maybe Jen and I should put our (clean now) outfits back on and take some medal pictures together?  Or we’ll just have to try to feel better at the end of the next race, so we can be awesome rather than puffy, red-eyed and near death.

Random thoughts

Sunny Day (or the blog post in which I used too many parentheses)

Another gorgeous day!  I’d love to go out for a run, except for, well, firstly, my hamstrings are KILLING me (I can barely walk) and secondly, I have 4 hours of teaching ahead of me…

How weird am I?  “I’d love to go out for a run”.  Seriously.  It’s not even that I truly enjoy running (though I do love the awesome feeling after a great run or race…not so much the feeling after a crappy run, or say, Sunday’s race) but that I want to get better at running (competitive spirit) and I know the more I run, the faster I will get.  I am tired of being slow and pokey.  Also, I’m enjoying my current tan arms from the past two weekends of running, and exercising outside means guilt-free tanning.

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It’s almost Friday!  Tomorrow night I am getting together with some friends at Bailey’s Chocolate Bar (ostensibly a girls’ night out, which I am much in need of).  Chocolate plus martinis…my favorite combination (perhaps yet another reason I keep not losing weight.)  No concert for me this weekend—I need an SLSO break for awhile.

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Sunday is two gigs, one an outdoor service at the World’s Fair Pavilion.  Home of the world’s hottest wedding (aka, my hairdresser’s wedding) last July.  I hope that Sunday is nice enough (not too cold, not too hot, not ridiculously humid.)  Then it’s a Palm Sunday evening service.  Holy week is almost here.

Next week should be a little easier as one of my schools is on Spring Break (in fact, today was the last day for me before their break.)  Perhaps I’ll be able to get in a couple additional runs…

Which brings us full circle today.  Oh, and I should add that the cat is sitting in the sun, in the window, yelling at something outside.  Rough life!