02.23.09 have music, will travel

Comparatively, I wouldn’t say I’m extremely well-traveled.  Sure, I’ve been hosteling through parts of Europe, toured in China, and vaca-ed in Turkey, but compared to my friends that travel for weeks to fun (and sometimes less-fun) places for work or play, I’d say my wanderlust is more lust than wander.

I completed a freelance project for my Sir Music Director a few weeks ago, one that took over every aspect of my life – a little thing I call Schumann 3.  As I prepared to send it off to the orchestra in Budapest, I thought, how funny – I have spent hours and weeks on projects, on sets of music, that will travel the world many times over.  These sets of mine, my labors of love, will be in the greatest of cities, on the greatest stages, with the greatest musicians, in the greatest performances.  I don’t mind that this will go unnoticed – I just hope to join them someday for a few of the highlights.

On a related note, wendy, ink is official as of today.  Official to the IRS since I’m doing my taxes, that is.  I officially own my own business.  Which means my first audit is right around the corner…

2.14.09 belated love

(late yes, but we all need love from the universe)

Betwixt mine eye and heart a league is took,
And each doth good turns now unto the other:
When that mine eye is famish’d for a look,
Or heart in love with sighs himself doth smother,
With my love’s picture then my eye doth feast,
And to the painted banquet bids my heart;
Another time mine eye is my heart’s guest,
And in his thoughts of love doth share a part:
So, either by thy picture or my love,
Thy self away, art present still with me;
For thou not farther than my thoughts canst move,
And I am still with them, and they with thee;
Or, if they sleep, thy picture in my sight
Awakes my heart, to heart’s and eyes’ delight.

2.17.09 librarian love

I’ll admit it:  I steal friends.  I do.  Can I help it if my awesome friends have other awesome friends?  To date, no one has really seemed to mind, and I think I’ve stolen a fair amount of Whitney’s.  I’ve coveted David, and now I have my Joanna.

Really, in truth, we should be friends.  We have so much in common.  The most obvious is that we are both librarians, and therefore have an affinity for cardigans, and other librarianesque things that I can’t tell you about, because you wouldn’t understand.  And I know I have officially won her over as I received a Valentine from her, in the form of a felt coffee sleeve with mustache decal.  It’s awesome.  And reversible.

I tried it out at the CE this weekend whilst in Cincinnati for the big holiday, proudly displaying my ’stache.  I did get some comments, but they were more about why I was holding my coffee cup oddly rather than on the actual sleeve itself.  Anyways, I love it, I love Joanna, and I’ll love it when she’s selling them on etsy.

and J, I’ll gladly cash any check you write, even if it’s with your mouth.

1.3.08 me without my clarinets

I am a fierce taboo competiteur, or so I thought. I realized, though, that perhaps my communication is only as good as those who speak the same language. My clues in order to get team guess a word, without me saying obvious related words:

‘Greenline’  <no response>
‘Tosca’  <no response>
‘Buffet’  <no response, blank stares>
‘Seriously? Selmer is so last season’  <cricket chirps>
‘Van Doren’  <no response>
‘no one plays on Backun, how are you not getting this?’  <tumbleweed rolls by>
‘Sweet Jesus. Ok, how about Stanley Drucker? Lawrie Bloom? John Bruce Yeh? Benny Goodman? Really? Nothing?  <silence>
‘Ok, this section sits next to the bassoons, you must get this’ <flutes?>
‘Sigh. Behind the flutes, through the tree…’

*photo from Flickr, MollyAdventures’, all rights reserved

1.2.08 i wear the pants

For those of you opera minded folk, I came across this charming quiz.

My result, we always knew I was complicated:

You’re Count Octavian Maria Ehrenreich Bonaventura Fernand Hyacinth Rofrano! Impetuous and fickle but a nobleman through and through. You fall in love at the drop of a handkerchief, and you’re hopelessly naive about the labyrinths of the human heart, especially your own. Still, you’re young and gallant and you look damn good in silver breeches. In your spare time, you enjoy dressing like a chambermaid and playing dirty tricks on lecherous old men.

12.30.08 girl, what you got in that bag?

As a hip urban dweller, out of necessity I’ve begun carrying a large bag, my mobile fortress of solitude in case, just in case I’m slobbered by a puddle, I need to pick up groceries on my way home, or anything else unforseen  that I might encounter between my home and other home, the library.  What’s in my bag, in no particular order:

pencil sharpener, sunglasses, earmuffs, mints, mp3 player, umbrella, keys, comb, business cards, wedge of port salut, wallet, cta pass, pencil case of  portable library, rosebud salve, MOLA top-secret board documents, expandable shopping bag, Lyric ID and keys, extra set of gloves, moleskine, pair of red  round toe t-strap wedge heels, bag of girly things including 5 different kinds of lip goss, and of course the blackberry.

Boy Scouts got nothin’ on me.

for more voyeurism

12.25.08 very merry

To you, wherever you are, in whichever corner you may be…

Please see Whitney’s Blog for the update of my Christmas.  Meals thus far have included Celebratory Christmas Eve Consommé’, The Ws Famous Fiesta Bowl, and of course The First Annual Christmas Fromage Forage.

While I await my gift from Secret Santa Joanna, I’ve decided to give everyone else a gift – my first appearance and participation into Sweater Thursday.  I chose the fairly traditional and seasonally festive wool that I’ve had since circa 1998.

11.20.08 for the three little letter answer

Sometimes during fits of sleeplessness I randomly add things to my rss feed.  I don’t actually remember signing up for Pen and Paper, and I’m pretty sure I did because I thought it was about … stationary and the like.  I think, perhaps, that may have been too literal.  I like the poems from mr. blueknight, possible proof that romance isn’t dead.  Or at least romanticized ideals, and I can get on board with that.

I locked my self in my room, Just to write you letters and poems, So no one can hear me, no one can see, While I’m crying, while I’m smiling, I’m surrounded by thick walls, Lying on the papers on my bed, With tears of pain with them, Brain and heart were frozen by your name, I cried every night until I fall asleep, Wishing that you were here, I wish every time for the answer, That I long to here someday, Let me tell you this my girl, That your three letter answer, Can complete the whole me, And that can make me feel so happy, Please tell me what I need to do, To got the three little letter from you, Do you want me to bend my knee? For us, so we can be “we,” Or do you want me to die and live again, Please tell me, I’m suffering from pain, Ask what I need to do, and I’ll begin, Just don’t tell me, that you don’t love me, Because for the three little letters, I’ll do all the impossible things, Not just moving the mountains, Or even fly without wings, Please hear the echo’s of my psalm, Wishes and prayers for you, I just want to be with you, Because I really love you so, Just for the three little letter answer, That completes me, when I hear

11.14.08 they still make that?

There is one, and only one thing, that I despise about living in a city, and that would be of course – cockroaches.  Mice and spiders don’t seem to phase me, snakes even, but there is something about these things that really freak me out.  Especially when they are the mutant kind that are ghastly large.  Like the two I’ve found in my apartment.

The first one, (Ixi’s suggestion I should name, so we’ll call him Larry), appeared in the bathtub.  After I tried to get the yelling to stop and realized it was coming from me, I grabbed a can of hairspray.  Over the next thirty minutes I sprayed Larry, covered him in bleach and anything else I could find, and even pleaded with him to go away, finally he gave in after I immobilized him (he was actually hairsprayed to the bottom of the tub).  I couldn’t fall asleep for hours after the battle.

Tonight, Ichabod was a bit bolder than his friend, making his  way into my living room.  Clearly I had to lay it down, and by it, I mean the hairspray.  After the first incident I knew I wouldn’t have enough hairspray for my poof and another visitor, and after attending the Lulu opening night my spray options were limited on the way home, meaning that no place that was open had any.  Clearly I couldn’t go home empty-handed, and hairspray worked pretty well the last time, so I figured I get the most toxic thing I could find, which interestingly was the cheapest as well.  Turns out, and I didn’t know this already, that Aquanet is still manufactured.  It’s one of those legendary beauty items, once the rage but you forget that you can find it some place other than the Smithsonian – and of course who buys it?

I do.  I’ll probably be buying it in bulk since I hear apartments near the lake are prone to them.  Ichabod’s time came much quicker, I think because of the higher toxicity.  If you’re looking for it at your neighborhood store, it’s usually shelved next to the Jean Natte.

10.17.08 if by

In my mind, I don’t really have a good sense of ‘home’ or where that could possibly be.  For the longest time, the term ‘going home’ always meant to Lansdale, the suburbia dairy farmland just north of Philly.  Though as more time passes in my absence, I have a harder time recognizing my childhood stomping ground amongst the new retail, oddly ubiquitous drug stores, and coffee shops.

This weekend, as I packed my bag for Cincinnati, I was feeling a bit like I was going home, and my mind had a hard time switching geographical locales for this concept – the east coast to the south midwest.  I made the turn down Linwood, past the neighborhood deer in the front lawn, up the drive to Priscillaneous, made my way into the white brick house, through the blue door, up the stairs to my old room, collasped into bed with Simon padding loudly into the room to join me – and sighed, ah it’s good to be home.