Some things our conductor said in rehearsal tonight, and a Rhyming Moment

1. Our conductor seems to be consistently either unnecessarily cranky during rehearsal, or striving to be the young, cool, funny guy that wants to joke around all the time. I think because we were on the cusp of a long weekend he was in a good mood.

"Alright, so this is like the little French boy trying to sneak out of his house to play on the French streets in the middle of the French night. On second thought, that sounds kind of sketchy actually. Never mind."

"What does La poupée mean, anyway? The puppet? Ok, right here I want you to just tickle the puppet, okay? What, you think that sounds creepy, too?"

"We are in SCANDINAVIA! There's mountains, and cliffs, and snow, and fjords, and there's a Big Concert Timpani playing REALLY LOUD out there!"

"What's the tempo marking on this movement? Moderato? Good. Does anybody have "rush every time you have quarter notes"? Because I was afraid the publisher had marked all the winds' parts wrong again."


2. I think that perhaps I should change the cd I'm currently playing in my car. As I turned the corner onto my street this evening I noted that not only was I listening to the same song as yesterday when I made that same turn, but I was listening to the same phrase within the same verse of that song. I thought for a moment I had lapped myself.

Charming People 5: Me!

Hey folks, just so you know, I'm pretty dang charming. Want to know why? Here's some irrefutable proof:

• I take my banjo with me whenever I go camping. Everyone loves a banjo at the campfire!
• I donate every year to our local community radio and secretly I call it The People's Radio even though I'm pretty sure not all of the dj's are communists.
• I sing to my chinchilla every night when I feed her the square of shredded wheat that she so covets. Usually I sing either "Alberta" as sung by Eric Clapton (except I switch out "Chinchilla" for "Alberta") or "Honey Pie" by the Beatles (not "Wild Honey Pie", just the regular one).
• I had a speech impediment when I was a small child- who doesn't love a little kid with a speech impediment?
• I make cakes from scratch for the birthdays of everyone in my office.

Did you know?

I'm more disciplined now than I was a little over a month ago. Just so you know.

I've joined an orchestra (I'm last chair in my section- nowhere to go but up!), started riding my bike (partway) to work every day, and completely cut refined sugar from my life (except for family birthdays and religious holidays). Ooh! And I'm also bringing my lunch from home instead of eating out at work, mostly.

Alright, so it sounds pretty cheesy and half-hearted when you read over my pitiful list, but I've been amazed by how much I've been able to get done in the past month, and how, dare I say, easy it has been to do. I'm starting to believe that obnoxious line about if you want to make sure something gets done, give it to a busy person. Somehow, although I still have the same 24 hours in each day that I had before, I'm finding time to get it all done, and I'm finding the willpower to do it, too.

I've been wondering if one of the disciplined actions is somehow imbuing me with mystical powers, and if so, which one is it? Is the orchestra making me fulfilled in life so I feel happy about everything else? Does cutting sugar clear my system from all laziness? Perhaps the bike riding is raising my endorphin levels so I don't notice how annoying and haaarrd it is to make my own food and stay up for evening rehearsals after work.

Whatever it is, I'm just hoping that I don't end up like Allie from Hyperbole and a Half...

Charming People 4: Krystal

Aside from having a name that makes impossible for her NOT to have been born in the 1980's, Krystal is a pretty amazing lady.

When I lived with her, she was the cutest mixture of party girl and midwestern mom you could imagine. She spent equal amounts of time making casseroles for our apartment for dinner, going out clubbing, working at a small-town public pool, playing Pretty Pretty Princess, and wearing her Marilyn Monroe wig to classes just because she felt like it at the moment.

One of her favorite things to do in the evenings was to watch her Best of Will Ferrell Saturday Night Live dvd, and when she wasn't doing that, she'd make us dinner and shout with us across the table. My favorite thing to do was to watch my roommates should at each other and wait for our across-the-hall neighbors to come in to see if everything was ok.

We cried at the end of the year when we all moved out.

Now Back and Better Than Ever!

My computer, that is. My writing, well, we'll see. Maybe next week.

In the meantime, here's my weak excuse for new content:

Somehow I've become inspirational to multiple people lately. Or maybe I've just had good ideas? I recently got this urge to keep a bunch of journals. You know, one just for travel, one for work, one for dreams, one for bicycling. I suppose that in order to inspire people, you don't necessarily have to do the thing yourself; just spreading the word is enough, because although I've only written in two of my six journals, I've been telling everyone I know about the plan. So far at least three other people have jumped on the Journal Train, and one person went so far as to confide in my that she's suddenly started remembering her dreams when she never could before. Cower before me, for I can make people dream!

Also! Is it just me, or are there Colin Meloy's running around all over the place? Maybe it's just the glasses, but I've seen more of his doppelgangers than one can reasonably shake a stick at, and really I don't even get out all that much.

Also! Chaim Potok, as a personal favor to me, could you please not write such heartwrenching stuff? I just finished The Chosen and now I'm all dehydrated.

Psst

You may be wondering why, after getting such an energetic start to my Charming People series, I suddenly stopped saying anything at all. You might guess that it's because I don't know all that many Charming People.


But you'd be wrong.


I stopped writing because my computer suddenly and unexpectedly died on me. It's been a tough couple of weeks, let me tell you. I'm taking it in to be injected, inspected, detected, infected, neglected and selected today, so hopefully we'll be back in business soon.


Just so you know.

Charming People 3: Mrs Wahnsiedler

She was my Kindergarten teacher.

She taught me to read.

She had us put on a circus with hair-raising performances like hula-hooping to music. I think I was a clown.

She didn't say anything when I bought chocolate milk every day instead of regular milk for lunchtime.

She started every new year maintaining that, like Christopher Robin, she was six, and would never be any older. She must've been in her seventies by the time she was my teacher.