03 II 2002 - 09:48 - trivialis21

So. Hello again.

John, I have only forty more entries to get through. And as musical jokes go, that one wasn't too bad. You should have heard the ones about slipping and falling on your Bach.

No, I didn't think that was funny, either, but that might be because I am a Sober Musician.

Except for where the school musical is concerned, and then titles like "It's a Scandal! It's an Outrage!" never fail to make me laugh. Oh. That and trying to imagine the sort of person who would put up with my conductor in bed. Not that I've ever been in bed with him, and not that I ever want to be. But Jesus God, the man is hyper and goes through mood swings and uses analogies that are even gayer than I am and - oh wait, now he's sounding like me on a bad day. I may want to rethink this criticism.

My seating audition is in a week and two and three-quarters of an hour (since it's actually 10 AM right now). I'm not happy about this at all. I have eight to learn and right now can play maybe six of them decently.

Some of you will be saying, "What's the big deal? That leaves two for you to learn well, and you can do that in a week, right?"

Well, maybe so and maybe no, but it is still time to run around like the Energizer bunny on drugs. Because they defy any attempt I make to learn them with the right fingerings at the right speed and have I mentioned before just how STUPID some of the coach's fingerings and bowings are? Except, no, don't tell her that, because if I do I will be sitting in a little broom closet behind the stage for the next two and a half years. Although she does seem to be on pretty good terms with me, seeing as how I'm the only one who bothers to read the indications on/off mute, two/three/four/five/six-way divisi, solo cello. And talk about them. And catch errors with the accidentals, and if you're whispering "suck-up!" it's as much because I'm anal-retentive about Being Faithful To The Indications And Possible Intent In The Music as it is because I want a good seat.

Possibly more the anal-retentive bit. I didn't really realize that it could be construed as brown-nosing until the third time the coach put "sharp vision" and "Jeremy" together in a sentence and I thought "Oh no."

All right. Seating audition, John's excellent diary - go there if you've had it with this one - and now, sleep habits. My mother for some reason is convinced that the morning is for Doing Things and that the night is for Sleeping. While I'm not completely the opposite of her, I do believe that a good part of the night is for Working and a good part of the morning should by rights be for Sleeping. This leads to:

M: "Get up! Get up! It's 8:45, you have to get up!"

J: "mrumble mrumble ghuh? Oh. I don't have to be up until 9:30 because I told the people at the haircut place I'd be in at 10."

M: (evidently disregarding this) "Get up! Get up! It's 8:47, you've got to get up, lazy fool!

It's my father's birthday today.

From the 1974 Encyclopedia Britannica's article on "Sexual Deviations" comes the following section on "Psychoanalytic theories of the causation of homosexuality." I found several sections rather amusing. And some are just disturbing.

According to Freudian theory, usually either boys are too fearful of wanting their mothers sexually and thus turn from her and like her to the safety of those with penises, or they experience intense relations with their mother and so identify with her femaleness that they take the same love objects (males). In soem instances, according to Freud, hatred of a brother, in murderous intensity, is covered over with love; such a hate-ridden love seems to underlie the hostility found in male homosexual pairs. In other instances, a homosexual looks for a youth reminding him of himself at a younger, idealized age, feeling safer withs omeone more like himself than with a female. Others are said to be homosexual in order to assume the strength or masculinity they lack, much in the manner of cannibals who eat part of another to incorporate prized qualities.

Wow. That's just a whole slew of things I find incredibly disturbing. Hey, maybe this article (excuse me, Freudian theory) has hit upon the reason for the existence of NAMBLA! Or not. And: how disturbing is it that I suddenly feel as if any sex I'm ever going to have suddenly involves the specter of cannibalism? I'll get over it, yes, but sex and cannibalism: not two concepts I want closely associated, whether in my mind OR anyone else's. *shudder* Let's see, Freud: never wanted my mother, not old enough to idealize a younger version of myself since I don't want to make it with a toddler, don't have brothers, think the transferred masculinity thing doesn't quite work that way. The cannibal comparison didn't help you there, either. We'll call this a wash and try again, right?

Without any real segue (as so much of my writing is), I move into a couple of the topics I wanted to cover at the end of this entry. Narcissism: well, that's why I'm here, I suppose, writing little bits of my life on the Internet for everyone to see. That doesn't really matter, though; it's something I see in myself, something obvious from the statistics of the conversations I have with my friends, and something I don't really like but don't seem to be too energetic about correcting. Closely related to this are complaints I get from a couple of friends re: racial superiority of the Chinese and growing plague of narcissism. Er, that first sounded a bit like Nazi stuff with the Aryan bit excised, didn't it? Didn't mean to, so explanation sort of follows.

If you're white - actually, if you're anything but Chinese, you must have had this experience at least once in your life, especially if you've a) been to China b) been to San Francisco or anywhere else with a rather large Chinese population, where you get the feeling that suddenly you have been transformed into a Big Uncouth Monkey? I'm talking about that kind of racial superiority, not Let's Round Them Up And Kill Them So We Can Repopulate The Earth racial superiority. There have been complaints lodged against both J. and me for the You Are Monkeys attitude, although to be fair, F. returned with, "Yeah, but you Chinese breed yourselves so quickly..." Wheee, and that degenerated into, "Everybody away so you can brood!" Or at least, it did for me. I'm not exactly winning the Merriment Competition over here.

Ugh, I'm going to delete the last bit in my head and leave it up here until I can figure out what the hell I'm trying to explain. (Oh yes, that's me: curse curse curse). Narcissism: only I can fix that. How just do I go about that, though?

The kitten behavior: I found myself being used as a pillow by a friend the other day. Which was sort of nice, but I felt bad because I know (from complaints made by others) that I can be uncomfortably bony. Which is never good when you're trying to get some sleep. In case the person concerned is reading this: it was nice. I don't mind. After all, what are friends for?

Trignometry can and perhaps should take itself to the middle of Texas in a bright pink truck with the word "Sodomobile" painted across it in bright purple letters. Honestly.

VOX: you've heard about it if you read this entry. So that's that, although I'm trying to become the short-fiction editor ... so why am I composing half-poetry for it? (Half-poetry, because I feel it's gelded, and... ok, going bad places with here. Any readers recognize a bit of castration anxiety coming up here?) But: go and read it. Because I need feedback, and I won't stop these pleas until you do.

I've got to go now, may be back tonight. Dizboy: 40 entries. I promise I'll get to them someday.

Pax vobiscum, and don't let the Mormon missionaries bite, because that would just hurt. Especially if they have a retainer in.

(Oh God... retainer speech in a missionary? That image is... uh, I'll get back to you on that with an adjective.)