february 29, 2000
this is the only chance i'll have to write on this day for a few years, so i'm definitely going to take the opportunity. we recorded over the weekend in a place with pretty trees and a generous helping of cows, and it was the best time. putting music down on a tape is so much harder than making music for people who are sitting right in front of you, though. it's like those old vaudeville actors when the radio and television were invented. all of a sudden their audience was on the other side of a box instead of right in front of them, and they had a hard time doing their acts. playing for a little black box is a lot more scary than playing for a roomful of strangers, cause what you play into that box is going to be there forever. and laying the tracks on piece by piece can destroy your normal sound so easily, too, at least in cases like ours. people have said that there is an energy between both of us when we play..taking us apart seemed only to dissipate that energy. same as pulsation in jazz band..if you move together, your music moves together. and so that must mean if your thoughts are intertwined, your music will be as well. once we realized that, all our songs poured out onto the reel, and on top of that it ended up sounding pretty, too. what is even better was our non-recording time..eating pizza and watching crazy movies with a friend is the best way to spend time. so it was like, we got to see someone we never get to see, and we got to bring a nice tape home to remind us of everything we did. it was something that pushed last week along..like, if you do all your homework, you will get a treat at the end of the week.
the piano is calling, and i should listen. it is hard to go and work on something that you are terrible at doing, that is, until you get to where you can do it well. so "maybe i should move today" up a floor to the practice room. i'm packing the u-haul now..
february 23, 2000
yelling at people is always such a mistake starting five minutes after you're done. the other day i cussed out my kappa kappa psi friends..at the time, it seemed like the perfect thing to do. i was having a terrible, stressful day, and they had made me feel totally rejected. on that day, though, making me feel rejected was an easy thing to do. i feel like one of those whiny teenagers when i go over the reasons in my head. the part i especially hate about lashing out at people for no apparent reason is on its way in exactly seven minutes, though--the awkwardness that follows when you have to see those people again. our meeting is coming up and i'm a healthy mix of scared and ashamed. and i'm hoping that didn't come off as evil as i think i did. it is weird, because even though i am so happy most of the time, when i think about it, there's this basic part of my personality that is pure sadness. it's always been there, steeping my thoughts in melancholy, and so sometimes it's easy to "set me off." but that has changed as the years roll by..it's like the percentage of my mind it occupies has lessened, but a little will always remain. and these awkward moments will continue to happen every once in a while. but still, i don't want to hear the song that is coming on right now.
february 20, 2000
it's been a long time..i've been a slacker. but i have learned a lot about things in the past few days, like about people and music and other random things. we were playing a couple of shows last weekend, one in asheville, nc, and one in murfreesboro, tn. and in those two places i saw such differences from each other and from the place i'm calling home now..it was like seeing an entire spectrum of people in a span of two days, and it was really weird. in asheville, we played at a place called the pink house, which was really cool. imagine three stories of nothing but punk rock, and that's the pink house. there were eleven people living there, and it looked like all of them really had causes they were working for. they had a prison book program set up to distribute books to people in jail, and there were flyers from benefit shows, organizations, and meetings of theirs all over the place. they were kids who had their own beliefs and were putting them into action, and i really admired all of them for that, even though i only met a couple of the people who lived there. we got up the next morning and drove through the great smoky mountains (they are so very beautiful) and i imagined the people there, sitting on their front porches and watching the trees on the mountaintops everyday. if i could, i would like to stay there for a little while at least, and spend that time hiking and taking in the sunrises every morning. on the other side of this peacefulness was murfreesboro, which was a striking contrast to asheville the night before. i asked myself where those beliefs and actions had disappeared to, and why i kept hearing the songs people had already done. it was like a scene designed for television..it looked like normal, but there was something missing, just the way you only see three walls in sitcom houses. there was something important that just wasn't there, a big gap that was just being filled with alcohol and the occasional hit of acid. and it showed me a lot about what life is all about, just seeing such a radical difference that one day and five hours of lines and pavement could make. it's like, living only for yourself can make three fine walls, but unless you give some of yourself to other people, you're going to be awfully cold at night. friday night, i was inspired to make some kind of difference with my life. saturday night confirmed the urgency i felt to do so. after seeing what happens when you sit and sit and sit, standing up almost becomes a necessity.
february 8, 2000
class is boring but it's not so bad cause it's taking place in a computer lab today. so i'm sitting in the back sneaking in some fun internet surfing! our friendly and knowlegdeable professor piddled around for 30 minutes before starting class, so i got to piddle as well. i have been looking at the kickbright online zine and wishing my little blue page could be somewhere near as cool. maybe it will be like that when it has been up and running for years and years. i have seen webpages end, but i don't think mine is ever going to. right now, i don't see any reason why i shouldn't be still writing on here when i'm a really old lady. so i guess i'll keep on until then. uh-oh. now i have to be careful cause the professor is walking around and looking at our computers. he's trying to teach us how to use microsoft word. shouldn't people know how to use microsoft word by the time they are sophomores in college? some of these people don't, though. it is kinda weird..some of the kids in this room are obsolete. and i'm about to get caught not listening in class, so it's time to go, for now.
february 7, 2000
morning felt like a new beginning, where all my worries were left behind. i have been afraid of becoming what they are trying to mold me into. i guess it's their job though, to assume that i am here because my goal in life is to become a teacher, and so they assume that i want to be picked up by some school as soon as i step out of this one. i read an article a couple of days ago that divided a group of music students up into virtuosos, then people who were good but not THAT good, and at the bottom were the people most likely to become music teachers. it made me realize that some people who are too lazy to practice their instruments use teaching as a way out of that..i see them every day. but that's not why i'm here..i came to get better at my instrument and to practice outside of my classes, and in my classes i would learn how to show other people the reasons why i want to practice. while that article had its share of ridiculous ideas within its paragraphs, it still showed me that i'm lumped in with those "most likely to become music teachers" as well, whether i want to be or not. but that is what this school does, i think. they put people into categories and teach this group how to teach and teach another group how to compose, etc. there is some personalized attention, i guess, but overall, we are just categories here. and it makes me angry that there's no support for what i want to do. it's been all planned out in my mind for the longest time, but other people here can't see it. teaching music is seen here as the only thing a person does or nothing at all, but that's not even half of what i want to do. there are so many aspects of music to learn about and work with, so how could i limit myself to just teaching to one group of people every day until the day i die? the possibilities are endless, but this degree program puts a choke-hold on all options but one.
and it's killing me, the fear of losing my dreams.
february 4, 2000
i've been flimsy and sick and moaning at the ceiling for the past few days, full of words but too tired to type them out. but now, i'm feeling better, and here i am typing.
today i started down the road that will lead me to teaching little kids about what i love. i got to teach a little bit today, and it is so much harder than i thought it would be, but at the same time, it was a lot of fun. i taught a little spiny-haired girl how to look for patterns on her music, so that her fingers could move easier over the keys. someday down the road there will be more i can show people as well, and it might even get to be easier to do..well..maybe.
