21 II 2002 - 18:23 - vita25

I've been taking notes on what I want to write about as I've passed my week in Pittsburgh. Now that I'm almost home, I finally get the courage to ask my computer if I can use her sister sister if I can use her computer. My head is not working properly. So: here are the things I still remember, because I think I threw away the receipt I'd written on.

Apparently, I'm funny when I'm sick. And tired. Two examples: on the flight over here, I asked only for some water, which I got. In one of those open plastic cups - if you've ever been on an airplane, you know the sort, yes? So that was handed to me, and I started to drink it. I don't remember anything after that except waking up with about a quarter of the cup of water left in my hand. Apparently I'd fallen asleep without really realizing it and spilled it on myself. I looked over at my neighbor, who was reading a Danielle Steel novel (urgh I am not a snob!) and shaking with laughter. Glancing every so often in my direction.

You may draw your own conclusions from this.

The second: not that long, really. I fell asleep four times on the day I got in (I guess the little accident on the plane was only a little taste of what was to come). On the third time or so, I had just pulled out the futon with my sister. I woke up to find that I had been moaning "distressingly" for almost my entire nap. Yes. I now moan in my sleep. That's going to go over well, don't you think?

It's very dry here. I just thought I'd mention that, except for that I can use the dryness as a segue into my next subject. Dryness is bad for stringed instruments. Thus, you have to keep them somewhat humidified. (I know that's not really a word.) Many people do this by using a Dampit, a green rubber contraption with holes which fits into the f-hole of your instrument and contains a sponge inside. Said sponge can be filled with water, thereby keeping your instrument nice and moist. The rubber tube is capped at the end with a wide black stop so that it doesn't fall into your instrument.

Or so you think.

You see, we don't really have Dampits at my house. San Francisco is nice and moist, being a seacoast, sea-level city: we have no need of Dampits. My sisters, on the other hand, do, and so they've taken theirs with them. Now: this leaves us at home with two half-broken Dampits where the sponges have totally shrivelled. I, thinking that one-half and one-half make one, decide to put both in my cello.

I do not notice that one of them is actually a violin Dampit.

I got to Pittsburgh, opened up the case, and discovered that one of the Dampits had fallen into my cello. Oh great, I can start off my week with a little trauma! It took me half an hour to work the Dampit out of my cello. So that was my excitement for the week.

I've visited a bunch of museums while I was here; all were rather nice but also sort of bland. Most are similar to museums in other cities with the exception of the Warhol museum, which I visited today. That one promised so many things in its gallery captions and delivered maybe a quarter of them. At least it was relatively cheap for an art museum - four dollars for students.

There was a metal dandelion at the Carnegie Art museum.

The Carnegie Library is very noisy; everyone, it seems, even the staff, speaks full-voice. It's sort of annoying when one is trying to concentrate.

We went to an Indian restaurant the other night and saw a music video which was playing in the background. I've got to say: the ideal of "high, breathy" female voice is not doing it for me. It was rather amusing, though, to watch the contrast between women clad in long, flowing saris and men who were naked down basically to the groin feeling themselves up and rubbing oil on themselves. Maybe it would have made more sense if I'd understood the lyrics.

Then again, looking at Chinese music videos... maybe not.

My sister's friends are really nice. One of them is lending me his copy of The Great Gatsby so I don't have to buy it for the spring. Another one read quartets with us and complimented my viola playing. (It was awful. I can not read alto clef, transpose down an octave, count, and watch for tempo changes, all at the same time. My head exploded about two commands ago.) Another one lent us his car. And while it's not really for me - it's for my sister - it's still really nice of them. So I'll be writing them all thank-you notes from home.

I think I'm done now. In less than a day, I will be on a plane, headed for San Francisco and the school for which I should be frantically doing homework. *sigh* I don't know where my break went... and it'll be two months more until I've another one.

Some days, I wanted to beat my head against the wall until it bleeds. Then, I reconsider, and I just want to be held.