letters part deux

Dear NPR's This American Life,

What the hell, man? Your show today was ridiculous. I mean...advertise scary stories and then feed me some bull about a lady getting attacked by a rabid raccoon (although a 30 lb raccoon does seem kind of frightening, I'm not sure the over dramatization of the event with high pitched violin notes and creepy piano lines was justified), a long and pointless story about kids hitchhiking, and then have the national public confirm just how much our parents can be assholes? I think you even knew the show was sucking because of the David Sedaris bit at the end. I can picture you thinking, oh man! what is this crap?! What can we do to salvage the program? Are there any David Sedaris stories in our archive we can recycle to save our lazy asses?

Fucken A,
Lorn

Dear Church Gig,

7:15 AM rehearsal? 45 minutes away from where I live? Fuck you.

Sleepily,
Lorn

Dear Daylight Savings Time,

Thanks for the extra hour of sleep, but I'm afraid it's going to be pretty much wasted on my early-ass church gig. Bah, humbug.

Grumpily,
Lorn

Dear Impending Masters Degree,

Holy Shit. Only two classes left to take? A recital and orals? What do I do then? Why can't you hang around a little while longer so I don't have to think about this just yet? I'm scared. What if I just felt like I got things sorted here, and now you have to go on forcing me to make decisions about who I want to be and where?

Panicked,
Lorn

Dear Me,

Can you find that drive you had at the beginning of the semester, as well as the feeling that anything was possible? Right now it really sucks to be you, because you can't seem to focus on anything and you're not preparing adequately for the heavy work load you have. I know you don't think anything could be worse than this past week in terms of work and stress, but that doesn't mean you can shut down and let the rest of the semester wash over you. Wake up, snap out of it, and put the nose to the grindstone.

All the best,
Lorn

Dear Loneliness and the Overwhelming Desire to Lie in Bed Cuddling with Someone Special,

See above.

Please go away,
Lorn

Dear Sex,

You're good. Too good, because I can't seem to have enough...but I wish just for a little while I could stop thinking about you so I could be productive and maybe a little less neurotic. Also, you have a nasty habit of interrupting my concentration in the worst places, like in rehearsal for a church gig or in the middle of Seventeenth-century Music lecture. I must really like you, because even though I'm annoyed as shit that I keep coming back to you in my head, I don't have the strength to tell you to piss off. I don't know what that means. Read between the lines, I guess.

Hornily yours,
Lorn

Dear Gatsby,

Happy birthday, Chubby McFat-Fat.

Love you and your silly face,
Lorn

tengo hambre

What happens on the day that you finally resign yourself to the fact that at some point you're going to have to go out to eat for lunch, since you don't have any food at home any more?

You forget your wallet.

It's been about three days of being hungry for me, and even though I know very well what to do about that, I don't have much energy to cook, or even put together a friggen PB and J. I have all sorts of cravings for meals but none of them are satisfied by Denton's meager restaurant offerings. When I get to this point where I don't feel like eating anything but I'm ridiculously hungry, I usually need to go out and pay someone else to cook for me...man, I really want Chipotle.

But, my wallet's at home and time is short. Chipotle and my house are about as far apart from each other in this town as you can get. I'm tired of asking my friends to help me out (actually, somehow lately it seems like Mad Dog is always buying me stuff...do I look that pathetic?) but I'm tired of being hungry. At this point...just three dollars so I can go to New York Sub and eat cheese on a bun....man I'm so hungry I can't even make complete sentences...

(PS to Tim: Saw V for Vendetta last night. McFriggen awesome. Must watch it again when I get the chance)

i think i might be okay

First off, the background info:
Tuesday, I have to give a presentation on 150 pages of modal anaylsis of Monteverdi by Susan McClary. I also have to turn in a four page paper on the comparative musical cultures of Ewe/Dagomba and Shona peoples. I have a lesson for which I was assigned a ton of music, and two concerts in the evening.

The breakdown looks like this:
11a-12:20p Baroque history class (presentation)
1:15-3:30p Music in Africa (paper)
4p: Lesson (Bitsch 4 and 8, Gotkovsky 1st mvt)
6:30: Recital (quintet plays Calvert Suite from the Monteregion Hills)
8p: Trombone Choirs concert (Mark's octet, Ewazen Grand Canyon Octet)

If I can make it through this...well, I'll be okay until next Tuesday.

But after a long and fairly awesome talk with a friend today, I managed to get my head sorted out. Emotional issues- better. Stress issues- less stressful. Financial woes- still pretty shitty, but oh well.

And then I thought, what's really stressing me out about Tuesday is that I teach on Mondays, and that takes away a lot of time. So I moved my lessons to Friday, opening up at least 6 hours of blissful getting-things-done time.

I made my cats happy by buying them tuna cat food. Gatsby actually crawled into my lap after eating and stared at me contentedly. I went swimming. I didn't really get anything done, but the night's young enough. I took some deep breaths and left my trombone alone for a little bit.

I feel a little freer...a lot freer. I'm a lot more optimistic about the people here I call my friends...and that's the best feeling of all.

sweet home, sandy-eggo

It's that time of year where I start to think of San Diego a little more than longingly, where I realize that by the time I go home again it'll have been a year since my last visit. I saw my parents this summer, and my mom in February, but I haven't been HOME in a year.

When I think of San Diego, I have two pictures in my head.

The first is at the La Jolla Cove- the very same cove where I have so many times snorkled, swam, picked shells and taken in ocean air, as well as on one occasion almost died by being bashed against the rocks at high tide (a long and highly amusing story).

The second is what you see as you leave my neighborhood in Rancho Bernardo going toward the high school- mountains. That one toward the right? Megan, Mary and I climbed that one day, no trails, just started hiking right up it. I'll never forget the view from the top.

And other things: The Gaslamp Quarter, and martinis with Katie. La Jolla Shores and bonfires on the beach. Sitting on the porch swing with a book and falling asleep in the sun. The sky- palm trees- punk music- clean grocery stores- fast drivers- eucalyptus and bouganvilla- the smell of rosemary in the garden- knowing each day will be just as beautiful as the last- the Zoo and Wild Animal Park- the Botanical Gardens at Balboa Park- the Hotel Del Coronado- rollerbladers and surfers- canyons to hike in (and waterfalls to stumble upon)- paddling your kayak through a pod of dolphins- friendly, relaxed people- Oscar's breadsticks- the crabby lady at Dragon- sunshine that actually warms your bones- Julian apple pie- Henry's Food Store- tamales at the farmer's market-

It occurs to me that I grew up in one of the nicest places in the country.

Did I make anyone want to come home with me?

and so it begins

Man, sometimes I really suck at being alone.

It's like this: I'm really busy. Really really busy. I could fill just about every available hour of my day with some productive item of business, whether it be practicing trombone, catching up on school work, or taking care of various and sundry homeownership related things.

And then Friday night rolls around and I don't want to do any of those things. I'd like to be with people, or just a person, or anything really as long as it involved some personal attention.

Instead of actually doing anything about this I spend the time moping and feeling sorry for myself because no one ever calls me (this is my own personal slap on the wrist. Bad passive-aggressive Lorn, bad!). I contemplate the ceiling and consider just going to bed so I can wake up and feel like being a real person again. Just anything, to get this evening over with so that life can go on as normal.

This is pretty much impossible, though, when I've got loneliness on the brain.

I started out this semester with all kinds of fire and drive. I thought of myself and what I needed to do, and I relished in being free to do it. That I've gotten this far into the year before losing the drive is perhaps some sort of a record for me, but it's frustrating nonetheless.

Mentally, intellectually, and spiritually, everything's good. What I hate is that emotionally, I'm kind of a wreck, and that's making the balance of the other three tilt and go out of whack. I also don't like that I let other people indirectly control how I feel if their actions don't line up with what I'm hoping for or what I'd like to happen.

And hey, I'm single. Relationships are no good if you're so busy sometimes you can't even remember what day it is because it seems like one day has lasted for three. And if I had a relationship, would it be with someone outside of the music world? Because that's the only way I see things actually working out for me and some hypothetical person. Meaning: I've got goals. I've got a future. Hypothetical Person has goals and a future as well, and HP, if a musician, goes where the future lies. Tie the two of us together and it's another recipe for saying goodbye to the love of your life to move halfway across the country alone and spend the year in Mom and Dad's house feeling like life just put a cigarette out on your arm and then punched you full on in the jaw.

So for now, I'm lonely. I'm lonely because even if I could be with someone I'd have to choose not to be. And if I did choose to be in spite of all this, it'd be half-assed and strained.

Gah. I'm going to bed.

step one: steal underpants

This is the week I plan to catch up on all my shit.

Step One (Tuesday): Academics. Spend Tuesday getting all coursework back under control and catching up on reading assignments and general knowledge of study material.

Step Two (Tuesday): Trombone Choir. Practice music in hopes of not sucking at it any more because it's Ewazen and Ewazen is impossible if you don't shed it repeatedly (at least for me).

Step Three (Tuesday or Wednesday): Go swimming.

Step Four (Wednesday): Play bass trombone all day- think about how rocking it will sound with the friggen THREE O'CLOCK LAB BAND at the Syndicate that night.

Step Five (Wednesday): Finale time! Arrange "O Magnum Mysterium" for 4tet. Don't cry when realization hits that knowledge of Finale is slim to none.

Step Six (Thursday): Bask in the glory of an open afternoon for practicing. Learn Bitsch 4, woodshed the Gotkovsky Concerto, and work on 4tet music (esp. Apon second movement).

Step Seven (Thursday): Pet Kitties. Take nap with Kitties. Tell Kitties of eternal and selfless love held for them, promise to pay better attention in the future to their soulful 'but I miss you!' glances.

Step Eight (Friday): Review practiced material from Thursday, learn Bitsch 8, record something (esp. slide vibrato on "My Romance" for reference).

Step Nine (Friday): Socialize, but don't drink too heavily. Decompress. Find a massage partner?

Step Ten (Saturday): Review everything practiced, polish whatever necessary Record some more. Establish reasonable hours of quartet rehearsal.

Step Eleven (Sunday): Catch up on any schoolwork or research (esp. for Music of Africa paper).

Step Twelve (Sunday): Everything is okay. Deep Breaths. The end of the semester is sooner than realized. Wax on, wax off.

There you go! Twelve steps, just like an alcoholic.

(I give myself two days before this whole plan falls apart and I spend the weekend huddled in a quivering ball sensitive to all nearby light sources, muttering incoherencies about "slide vibrato" and "potatoes goin' bad, pa, better get some new 'uns.")

in which i lace my blog with obscenities

Gee, let me tell you how happy I am that I woke up at 7am this morning, drove 50 miles through a friggen flood watch in ridiculously heavy traffic for an hour and a half, and arrived at school ready to teach (and receive checks from my students) only to find that there is NO. FUCKING. SCHOOL.

Add this to the fact that yesterday I put a fair-sized dent (let's say it's much, much bigger than a quarter) in my bell which is of course an easy fix at our awesome repair shop on campus...but still. To me a dented horn is like the feeling you get when you look at someone with a black eye or a broken arm. It's just...disturbing.

On top of all this, and perhaps the main reason I am setting my lazers to KILL today, is that this weekend I lost complete faith in the humanity of my fellow music students. I am sorely disappointed in how badly everyone here uses and abuses each other, talks hypocritically and acts even worse. There's a tremendous amount of sleeping around and backstabbing and just general doucebaggery and I am pissed off about it.

I don't have a problem with the sleeping around. Let's get this straight: sex is something that people do. They do it with lots of people and lots of people do it with them. I guess what I don't understand is how little people seem to care for the people they're sleeping around with. I don't mean love, or affection- I mean compassion. I mean, have a one-night stand, sure, but don't lose sight of the fact that the person you slept with is a human being. Take care of yourself and take care of that other person.

AND CRISSAKES YOU CAN SAY NO IF YOU DON'T WANT TO DO IT, you asshats!

I guess most of my anger at this is coming out of my feeling that true connections here are nearly impossible to make. Everyone's busy, selfish, and out for themselves. I am the same way, and I'm not exactly knocking this kind of attitude. Being selfish this semester is helping me get ahead with my goals and figure out what I want. But knowing what I want means I also know what I want from other people, and that's compassion. If someone needs help I will help them and I hope for the same in return.

I'm trying to keep all of this in mind as I re-evaluate my own situation and emotions so that I can make some sort of emotionally balanced and intellectually sound decision about my place in this environment. I'm speaking specifically about things I can't discuss here and more broadly about the future and who's in it. Yes, who.

And I used to think relationships were hard. Huh! Try not having relationships!

all hail the north wind

Blow, blow sweet breezes.

Take that $#%&@*(!@*(#~! North Texas summer back from whence it came and leave in its place a glorious, crisp, scarf-wearing, jacket-donning fall. Bring color to the leaves of the (sparse and stunted) trees and open up a cold blue sky.

(Today you need a hat! It's such a beautiful thing!)

tuesday tuesday tuesday

Just checking in to let you know that despite money troubles, midterms, chamber music madness, too many cats, and a hungering for curry, I am quite alright!

That's about it. I don't want to complain and I don't have any funny stories at the moment.

How is life with everyone else? Open thread this mutha!

and then you'd be a harry potter character

Okay, I just need one male friend to voluntarily change their name for me. You'll like it, I promise. You will immediately become a bad ass and get lots of tail just on the basis of your name alone. Grow your hair out a little, and wear black.

Ready?

Now?

Athanasius.

Damn, that's the sexiest name I've ever heard.

it's baaAAack!

Day has resurrected an old friend.

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