It's always darkest before the dawn

I need to remember to "check in" for myself and not just to broadcast to friends. It has been almost a week since I posted in here and I have not written in my handwritten journal in a couple of weeks. (That one was supposed to be a weekly check in, to see how I am coming along from a longer term lens.) I also need to update LJ. Haha. Been busy.

I get perspective when I come on here. I am trying to let go of the performance a wee bit and just write in there what I would post here. I am going to cross post once I get the hang of that.

Want to take a second to say that I love my room/space. It is vibrant, active (a little chaotic) and unequivocally mine. It reminds me of something that I would see in an episode of Doctor Who, something designed and well-thought out to be a sort of ideal representation of the person occupying it. I rest here, draw power and strength from it. It's great. I like to stop and appreciate it every once in awhile.

I had two amazing practices last week and today was not so amazing. I think that I need more variety or something. I am practicing the Bach over and over, not merely to repeat it endlessly, but in thoughtful way. I think that I might need to choose a different project and revisit it. I can play it all the way through now at a nice tempo mainly error-free. I don't want to beat it to death because , pretty though it may be, I am getting a little bored with it.

Saw a performance on Picnic Day of Beethoven's 3rd Piano Concerto by a pianist who attends a conservatory on the East coast: Nathan Cheung. He's stunning! He actually plays with feeling and expressiveness. I think that he will go far. We were seated on the left so that we could see most of the orchestra and the pianist. I got to watch his fingers flying up and down the keyboard. I was most impressed with how he played slowly though. Playing fast isn't difficult once you strengthen your fingers and get used to the variety of motions. It takes time to work up to, but it isn't the most challenging aspect. I am still working on that, obviously, along with everything else. But he played very beautifully at any speed! It was such a pleasure and a treat. It was FREE. :O

( Moar Babbling )

The weather was nearly hot on Saturday!

Doing a dump of story ideas, but need to do more.
Maybe need a pep talk concerning the novel as well as piano.

I'm doing all right though.

…I more than made up for getting up late by putting in my time (around four hours??) today. I should probably take closer note of how much time I am spending on practice. I was feeling it in my left thumb pad and right wrist a little so I thought it would be prudent to knock off for the evening.

So the birds. At one point this afternoon they were rolling on the asphalt, no joke. I watched them tumble under a car in dismay. But they seemed no worse for wear seated at the feeder together. I changed it out as they watched from the tree. Complete nutters. They tussle every damn day.

I am concerned about Angela. She is receding, putting up walls. I texted her about getting lunch and she sort of brushed it off though she did mention wanting to…sometime. Sent her another text today inviting her to dinner tomorrow, but nothing. Her living situation is becoming untenable, apparently. But she spurns my advances, my attempts to be an ear or to help. I am trying to be the friend I have always wanted, basically. It's like, Allie was here and in some ways we scarcely connected. I feel very connected overall to the wide world even sitting in my room, but to certain people in my life, there are barriers. I can hear/feel/see/sense what they are about. I can't not. But they do not always acknowledge it themselves and you can't make people talk or open up even when you can already see them.

At any rate, I am so so tired at this moment. I woke up late and you know how even getting adequate sleep doesn't quite reverse the fact that you had a very long day prior? I woke up at seven yesterday and did not get to bed until after one in the morning. :S
I am putting in some serious hours, learning a lot in a short period of time, which is amazing. I love it! Though by "quitting time", I am super knackered. I had to force myself to stop earlier. I was unwittingly analyzing the Blue Danube. It's effing brilliant in its simplicity. Strauss switches from consonant intervals to perfect intervals and from more dissonant ones to more consonant ones leading back perfectly and elegantly to the tonic (C). And it's so pretty! Like he'll have the harmony be a second and a third, then two thirds, or a tritone and a third, then a fifth and a third. It just floats up and down the same few notes not deviating beyond the E above Middle C and the B just below that, but it's sublime. Brahms apparently was a huge fan of it and wished that he had thought of it.

And now to bed, for we rise at 9:30, ish. (Not really, more like seven thirty).

Just left a possibly, stupidly long quotey comment on my friend's A03. I think that I wound up mostly quoting and gushing and scarcely leaving any (to my mind) insightful or useful commentary. I am blaming my period brain. I read it a couple of days ago. But I have been too tired to formulate a coherent response. Haha, so this was slightly less incoherent than what it would have been had I commented yesterday or the day before, only every so slightly...
Fuck, I love her stories. There is only the now and all it affords you to feel in explosive colors that bleed out of you in the hopes of touching others.

There is a lovely breeze out. The relative temperature (relative to wherever you happen to be: the grass, the pavement, the patio all vary by degrees) outside is warm, but it is still nice. I am longing for a storm, for dampness. That would make my life right now. I realize why the change is so comforting, apart from it being what I was born into, what I am used to, what I grew up with. There is so much (more) sensation in a storm, the drop of the barometer, the accumulation of moisture that you can feel and smell on the surface of your skin, inside your nostrils, caressing the airways of your lungs. And standing in the rain with all of your free nerve endings alight with the cool droplets pouring down from the sky, rolls of thunder in your ears, flashes of lighting bouncing off your retinas. Wow. I miss it. I never thought directly about it, but it is an enveloping sensory experience.
Fuck science, really, except for its capacity to afford one yet another pathway for expression. That is what I will use it for. I sincerely hope that no one mistakes me for a true devotee. I am tied down to no belief system, be it outwardly, purportedly religious or vapidly, misleadingly, fallaciously factual in nature. In nature. What the fuck do they know about nature in their ever pressing need to dissect it and lay out all of the bits for further, cold-blooded probing? I believe in the web of life, the interconnectivity of the universe, and in magic. And rainstorms.


In other news...lady parts are stabbing me (but not as much in the feels, it's more strictly physical, thank gods) , Colin is mopey because he seems vaguely dissatisfied/tired and I think it is because he is exhausting himself with theatre and trying to avoid home so much it hurts. I would like him to feel more comfortable (even with nagging grandparents) and to feel safe here. I know that someone like him treats home as a temple and if it can't be, he tends to fall apart a bit. He needs it. We all need it. You can't always be flinging yourself here and there willy nilly. Not even the most outlandish of extroverts can manage that. I told him that I did not want him going into the city alone to see the Front Bottoms, one of his favorite bands. A friend was supposed to go, but she punked out on him. It is not all dire though. Yesterday we went to see Begin Again again and Colin met us after outside the theatre and for a moment everyone looked happy to be in each others' presence(s). That film though....it completes me. XD It was even better the second time around. Just....incredible.

Colin wants to see it again so I will have to take him or give him some money to go see it with someone. Hmm.

I don't often see people with as wide an array of facial expressions as me. What's weirder is when they seem to possess the same ones. o_O This is just random gifs on the internet, nobody around here. Or have you ever encountered people (am I actually addressing questions to my blog now?) who have a rather similar life path, upbringing, sort of only in an odd reversed mirror image sort of way? ...like they moved or did things at around the same age, or grew up someplace wintry and defined by it and you grew up someplace where it didn't ever exist and you longed for it because you glimpsed it in picture books and they wished for the things, conversely, that you had in abundance where snow never touched the ground, a brisk chill never kissed the air? But there are uniting factors like being an only child, the observer. It's like they could be your mirror twin. Only NOT. Yeah, uh. Severe babbling. Bad. Bad. Must stop. Pay no attention to the complete freak behind the curtain...this has nothing the hell to do with anything. Any resemblance to...is purely blablabla etc.

Oh and, Colin said the other day that I am the most awkward person that he knows. WHUT?

I feel like a fool for wanting little quiet, happy moments and perhaps I am making a big deal of it, but I can't stand it when he is just lying there in his room, clearly moping and feeling sorry for himself. I am allowing him to get away with it for about another hour or two before I need to make dinner and then he is talking to me whether he likes it or not. This is ridiculous. He is trying to learn six new songs in a short period of time and I can tell that he is receding in the face of feared failure. His room is a disaster zone, again. He is just settled morosely in bed amidst a cluttered sea of his haphazard possessions. It's the perfect stereotype of teenage angst. Perhaps drama is as drama does. STILL. :S

Meanwhile, amidst my ravings I have the bonkers/impossible schedule this week. Need to cram info for Exam 5 and then turn around and review for the final that occurs on the very next day. I was planning to review more this weekend, but it got away from me. I was also so tired. I am so tired. Urrghh.