03 IX 2001 - 01:37 - defessus10

"I can play all my music, so I don't need to practice it." -overheard in chamber orchestra on 31 VIII 2001

I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder. I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder.

Ever read "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"? (I must be breaking some punctuation rules; the grammar gods will get me but until then I shall continue to break them with impunity... mwahaha-) The above is from that.

I was going to quote something else, but I've forgotten it. If you're reading this, Tiff, Spevak didn't come, I just had to practice. So pigs still can't fly and I am still luckless in many things. On the other hand, I'm feeling pretty good about my audition piece for once. I proved to myself that I actually can play the thing with expression. We'll see how the Youth Orchestra people like it.

Speaking of the orchestra, our 2001-2002 season's subscription brochure has a picture of me in it! Well, not me alone; it's the front part of the cello section, and it must have been a day where a couple of people were missing, as I'm sitting higher in the section than I normally do. It's going to be sad this year - I've mentioned it before, but I'll mention it again: more than half of my section is leaving, and our section was the section that could play the best consistently. Again, I've got misplaced modifiers and such, but what I mean to say is that, over long periods of time, we were the best section. We'll see what happens, but I'm not optimistic (take that either as a general statement or as a forecast of Things to Come in orchestra - either will do).

So the exciting things that happened to me yesterday- I went to the Armani Boutique downtown in order to do my assignment for Western Civ ("Write about how the Emporio Armani Boutique can be viewed as an expression of Classical architecture. Use both the exterior and interior of the building for your analysis.") It was a beautiful day (of course - we don't get sun until Indian summer - wait a sec, am I still allowed to call it that? screw it - and of course I'm in school when Indian summer starts. grrrr) and so it was nice and then I ran into other people from my school - makes sense, huh, since we all have the same assignment? But I didn't run into the nice people, I ran into the halter-top trendy crowd, the kind of girls know what they wore for two weeks back... and they asked me questions and I was just about ready to scream. So then my parents came and rescued me, because they were done with whatever they were doing in Chinatown #3, and we went to visit my grandmother in San Jose. My grandmother... this isn't the crotchety one who lives in San Mateo and is my father's mother - this one is very sweet, although I think she's a little dotty and she's a little hard to deal with. She cooks a lot. She gives us huge bags of delicious food. When we visit her, she sits and watches videos of me and my sister playing the cello, and I feel as if I might as well not even be there. You never know what she'll do next - as we were leaving, she told us stories about: 1) her friend who was run over and killed and is currently in the morgue and will stay there until they catch the driver 2) some other person who was stabbed 3) an old man who choked to death on a little sticky rice pancake ... laughing the whole time. It's sort of eerie. We told her to be careful and that was all we had time for because the elevator was closing and soon we were on our way back up to the City.

That brings me to today, when I had a piano lesson (not too bad), actually practiced (go me). Right now, I'm futzing around on the Internet, trying to avoid writing the assignment that I went downtown to collect information on. I'd like to think I'll get it written tonight, but I'm having too much fun talking to other people and stuff. Yes, I can be specific. No, I don't care to be more specific right now. You'll just have to wait for that...

By the way, my sister is coming home for an audition on the 14th. I'm excited. And now for a tasteless transition: my corns are starting to peel, which excites me too, because perhaps I might be able to get rid of them now. All right... next topic!

Now I have a supply of notes from... well, today, really. Things that get on my nerves - "hella," speaking and ending every sentence with an exclamation point, using "gay(s)" as a substantive... it's not that I think that it's not valid, it's just that... well... time for my rant. You see, "homosexual" is just a bit too unwieldy for me, and "gay" is the word that my mother spits out like buckshot, hateful, and "fag/got" is reserved for my wonderful classmates who are nice people, usually, just their jokes and comments are off-color. Which leaves me with... queer, I guess, which is what I've been calling myself for a while now. But the whole gay-as-substantive... or even homosexual-as-substantive for some reason irritates me. Not that I really have any dice with them - I agree, having "gay people" in a headline is amazingly unwieldy and is unnecessary. So why do I feel this way? You tell me.

So last night, I was at Spanketeer's diary, having been referred by the wonderful borogoves, herself, and... - time out for a moment. I was going to say something about the difference between us. But I've forgotten it and the cryptic notes I left last night ("exc pt spank vs. od") don't really help. What I do remember, though, is trying to go to the next entry and repeatedly hitting "previous." After a while I felt so stupid that I threw in the towel and went to bed - probably a good thing, since it was about 2 AM. Yes. Anyway... As Spanketeer suggested, I will go on to include some really pointless information about myself:

• Height: 5' 2"
• Hair/Eyes: Black/Brown
• Favorite Activity: playing the cello, when it's not practicing
• Second Favorite Activity: -hmm. Probably some of the weird discussions I've had with T. - including discussions about the nature of God and kink, all within thirty minutes.
• Favorite Color: probably hovering between forest green and prussian blue. ask me later?
• Sexual Orientation: If you haven't guessed yet, you must be daft.

As you can tell, I'm not quite yet up to Spanketeer when it comes to revealing things about me- but whatever. I suppose that too shall come eventually. Or perhaps not.

Queensland update: I've drawn Breederton - which is perhaps of note only to T. This shouldn't be so, especially since T. has a town of her own and given that straight people aren't confined to Breederton, I honestly don't see why she expects that I expect that she live there. Actually, I do, but if anyone is following this I expect you're throughly confused by now. Don't worry, I have that effect on most people. Queensland even has a sanatorium for people like you. It's out by the Isles of Lacaedamon, far away from the people of U - and that's somethign I have to explain. You see, this morning, there was the fog blowing in, and I realized that Queensland needed a town of mists (Qland boring you? You can leave now. I'm not making you read. This is one of my forms of therapy and my form of escapism (Qland, that is) and I can babble about what I want to (in my diary, another form of therapy) and if you don't like it, that's fine with me.) and so I decided to name it in my half-Chinese -except I think that Pinyin can be lame at times and so I named it U. Wu might be a better approximation but again, Chinese to Roman is approximate- yes, I'm boring. So?

So I've got to run now and I'm angry because my computer is on the fritz and has crashed AIM and ICQ both about twenty times and has melted down three times and keeps crashing IE and Netscape no matter which one I run and I'm ready to sell the thing for scrap and have it turned into programmable microwave ovens! (Bloom County readers... I got that from there-) but then the microwave ovens would probably crash and burn the houses down and then we'd be worse off than when we started so I'll just sit here fantasizing about turning my computer into little pieces of glass and metal and plastic while it crashes for the umpteenth time making a mockery of my efforts to write an essay on architecture and a reflection on poetry before the Labor Day weekend is out and little gnomes jump out to savage and eat me.

I'm cold. It occurs to me that there's an explanation for this: from 6AM to 12AM my blood is thick, adapted to San Francisco. This leaves me with 6 vulnerable hours. And now I'm feeling it... the warmth ebbing from my body, extremities first... yes. Time to go to bed soon.

And now, a closing quote:

"If we shadows have offended,
Think but this, and all is mended:
That you have but slumbered here
While these visions did appear.
And this weak and idle theme,
No more yielding but a dream,
Gentles, do not reprehend.
If you pardon, we will mend..."

Over and out.
J

Now if only Spevak would come...god, I'm desperate.
Bojemoi, I'm tired.