2001-08-19 - 7:20 p.m. - quotidianus10

The weather's been lovely today; overcast, but not real fog - in fact, it's the kind of overcast where the clouds are just that grey-white that makes your eyes hurt. I had my last rehearsal today - fingers were cold from stress, and I don't see how that can get better. I can't wait until this is over and my nerves are sort of back to normal and the self-recrimination (yes, I could have done a better job) sets in.

I wish the fog would come in.

Thoughts:

-I'll be glad to see orchestra people again, but I'm not sure about school. As noted in my last entry, we've all changed, and I'm not sure whether that's for the better. Most likely orchestra people have changed, too, but I can still hide that from myself.

-E pluribus unum. Does it really work? Is it really true? (Is the emphasis on duty and honor in Chinese culture really slipping as terribly as my parents claim it is?) Has it ever worked? Questions to be aware of in a city that the newspaper (which I don't really like) describes as "no longer the westernmost outpost of Europe but the easternmost outpost of Asia." Is there any convincing reason it can't be both?

Not only an outpost of both cultures (what, the Bay Area is the boondocks now?) but also a living refuse-bin, my city is.

To file under category "Things That Don't Make Sense": we're having guests over. They're to live in what used to be my grandmother's room (before my mother and my grandmother had one too many argument and my grandmother was effectively banned from our house until the end of time): downstairs. My room is upstairs. The guests are to be given the bathroom I was using (upstairs) and I am to use the bathroom downstairs. Hmm...

Tomorrow, about fifty people who are going to be coming and listening to me. Eek. Which reminds me: it's time to make some reminder calls (they were probably hoping I'd let them forget, but...)

I feel ill. My stomach seems to be caught in the space just between the back of your mouth and the beginning of your throat. I will not sleep easily tonight.

And now I've got a headache to boot... something about flight-information systems that does that to me, with their warped English: "If you would like arrival information to San Francisco-" but already I can't stand it.

Stop all these people from shouting and let me sleep so I can dream of domestic bliss.

Postscript: It's midnight, five hours after I wrote this entry, I'm tired and I have a headache, and I want to go to sleep soon. But. We went to pick up our friends from Las Vegas; turns out that we moved things around so they'll be staying upstairs and using the upstairs bathroom - it makes sense after all. This pounding in my head is not helping my depression which at times threatens to overwhelm everything. I won't let it or the knives and the nooses in the back of my head will win control and I don't want to be around when that happens. They're good people; the daughter is going to a boarding school up in Marin and so we're to be her local guardians. The daughter is a grade below me but only a month younger than me; as usual, the adults got into a big argument over who paid for dinner. I sent the daughter some music last time, hoped we'd be able to play together this time- but rehearsals have kept us both busy, so later, I suppose. I'm getting more and more incoherent; I apologize (and it is after all midnight, although I've written better.) Concert in twenty hours; stress levels through roof; starting to feel pain in joints. I think it's time to sleep now.

Wish me luck - for the concert, for everything (insecurity-overcoming, love, what have you: whatever you feel like) - if you have it in you? Even if not: bows to you anyway, I appreciate it that you've read this far.

J (:>