21 January 2003 - 23:05 - trivialis54

I, uh, should be getting my homework done, but I'm here instead.

I think part of that has to do with the multiple scraps of paper I have in my pocket with cues for entries. Of course, half of them are illegible -- pencil rubs off -- but I'll do my best with everything else.

I've been seesawing recently between confidence and terror as a cello recital of mine upcomes -- on the one hand, I'm telling myself that I'm playing 'only' for an audience at the local Christian Scientists' retreat, but then again, the audience has nothing to do with what I produce, really. Even if I were playing for drooling toddlers, I would owe it to first the music, then the composer, and finally myself to play everything well and honestly. Given how much time I have, I'm a little nervous about this -- I have the notes under my fingers, but do I have shapes in mind, can I say something? Part of me is panicking, saying things like 'how could I think I could do it, I can't even play the cello,' which is probably overreaction, but it's still not reassuring.

What I probably need to do is to breathe. I hold my breath in times of great anxiety (which is common), when I play (which is not so common), and when I eat (of which I have no idea). Also in one other case, but you don't want to know about that. It gets difficult to play openly when one's breath is turning stale, and it doesn't help when someone begins to pick apart everything you're doing, pausing at the end to say that 'you're playing better than I've ever heard you play before.' The criticism is exactly what I need, but it doesn't help. I wish I didn't take everything as a commentary on my playing, my ability, and my intelligence -- I think many things might go much more smoothly if I didn't.

Of course, if everything goes really badly, I can always turn to the ridiculously great comfort I derive from stuffed animals. I don't even know where I got the ones I have -- perhaps the ones my sisters got reproduced themselves at night, taking advantage of darkness to hold secret and mystical rituals that would bring forth more into the light. In any case, they're certainly fun to play with, and yes, I've named each one of them, and they all have distinct personalities.

Which reminds me (in a way I'm baffled by and couldn't explain) -- it's time to do my homework, which is probably for the better anyway because my homework is still waiting for me and I am incoherent and I just remembered that I'd promised someone to go over a poem with them tomorrow and I still have thank-you notes to write. I am a bad person at times.

You tell me, please, because having read it, I am baffled: why did I write this?