Homespun

Well, the Homespun concert's come and gone. Overall, it went quite well. There were a few mishaps, but the audience was forgiving.

We played 12 pieces (roughly... I forget exactly what all there was), including some flute choir, brass choir, clarinet choir, and string orchestra pieces in addition to several full orchestra pieces. No yell band for this concert, so it was all us. We did play one of my pieces - Poet and Penguin - although I'm beginning to realize how inexperienced I was when I wrote it.

The crafts presentation was nice, if a little small. Mom brought some of Amy's dresses that she'd made, and Bobbette brought some needlepoint and some of her poetry and photography. Liana brought some nice soaps that she'd made, and some other folks brought other things as well.

Okay, let's see... Christmas was good. I got what I asked for (with the exception of scores as my parents don't know what I have), which means I have new ties, a new toaster, a nose hair trimmer (mom refused to buy one either for myself or dad... so we bought each other ones ;-) and some books, two Terry Pratchett Discworld novels, which I've already finished reading. I love having no work and no classes. I can just read to my heart's content. After present-opening, we played the brand-new Lord of the Rings Trivial Pursuit. Until we were late for dinner at my aunt's house. Hehe, but we made it not too late. Dinner went well, and Amy, Terry and I played Lord of the Rings Risk, which was actually disappointing. So Amy came up with a bunch of new territories and stuff for it based on maps she found in the novels. We'll have to give it a try soon. Another problem with the game is that the "continents" and territories aren't easy to see, like in regular risk. It seems poorly designed to me, but oh well. Mandy even called while we were there, so I got to talk with her a bit. I never seem to know what to say, though. I've always looked up to her, but I don't feel like we ever quite connected like we could have.

Friday went well. Long quartet rehearsal. Eizo brought Cannon (odd name, huh?), who Eizo bills as a friend but I suspect is his boyfriend. Cannon doesn't play, and to be honest kinda freaked the rest of us out by walking around Bobbette's house and generally being creepy. Oh well. Eizo seemed... not quite himself, but not as mopey as we had feared he might be. I wanna give him a big ol' hug but I'm not sure that's what he wants. Plus I wouldn't want Cannon to think I'm trying to steal him away...

Saturday was Grandma's birthday. So, we got up bright and early and made our way down to the nursing home after picking out some clothes for her. She was in a bad mood when we arrived, but we managed to cheer her up, I think. Her mind is almost completely gone, though. I don't want to live like that, so if you come upon me in such a state and it's likely that I won't recover (ie, I'm not drunk or something like that), put me out of my misery. Quickly. Anyway, in the evening was the wedding gig. It sucked. Badly. We didn't fade well or together, and we had a hard time seeing and hearing... but they were happy with it, so who am I to say anything? We learned a bunch, though. We need to learn to play in sub-optimal conditions, for one thing.

Arte got me a gift, too, so I'll try my best to remember her birthday (the 13th of January, I believe) and get her something. She got me a pride treble clef pin and a pride bracelet, which I will now wear everyday in the hopes that a) someone will see it and it will be a ray of hope in their lives to know that they're not alone and b) a cute guy will see it and ask me out ;-). I still need to talk with Brandon. Find out what he thinks of the situation. 'Cause I'm starting to get attached, and that's bad when the other person isn't even around (believe me, I know). She also let me borrow a couple books, one of which is the Front Runner, which is "the most celebrated gay love story ever." We'll see, but it is good so far.

Today, well... jazz rehearsal is about it. Dinner tomorrow with the quartet. I need to work on the ASSG website, and I'm really distracted right now so if I feel like it I'll finish this later.

Well, well, well, apparently someone is reading my blog since someone requested comments... so they should work, now. Be happy.

I forgot something that was actually really cool that happened last friday. In A-S, the prof brought in a swordmaker to talk to us about swords and other weapons from the time of the anglo-saxons. He brought in a fairly wide range, from a Roman cavalry sword (replica) up to an Irish, well, it wasn't exactly a broadsword, but as I recall it was two-handed. Swordmakers used to take soft iron and carbonized iron (steel), and make parts of the blade separately. Then, they would weld them together, with the harder steel on the outside and the iron on the inside providing support. Of course, some also folded the steel into the iron to get a blend... and Damascus blades (or what were called Damascus blades in the old days) were made from taking the steel and iron, melting them together and then fashioning a sword. But that process usually left the blade very inhomogeneous. When higher temperatures were reached later, the smiths had access to a relatively cheap form of homogenized metal... and sword prices went down. Very interesting lecture, nice guy. He brought in some speartips, too, and we got to handle the weapons (heheheh). Only the guys seemed to actually pick them up though. Maybe the guys were just the pushiest? Ah well, anyway.

Friday night... I did get to go to the party, kinda. I got there a bit early, and helped set up (and injured my finger somehow... I think the couch that we had to move had splinters). And for some reason I ended up folding the host's laundry. I'm much too nice sometimes. I shouldn't be such a pushover. Anyway, the party had just barely started (and wasn't really going yet) when my parents called, saying that the parade was done. Apparently the Parade of Lights folks are very good at ending on time. So I walked over to the Civic Center and met my parents. We took the bus home, and not just any bus, the SLOW bus (which kinda annoyed me. Taking the park-n-ride I could've been to Wagon Road before the bus we were on got back. I could've stayed longer, but I would've had to not go with my parents) because it was cheaper than the park-n-ride. I understand that, but it doesn't really matter to me since my bus pass is good for the entire system. Oh well.

Mom and dad got me a present for my birthday, which did please me. It's my very own DVD copy of the Original Broadway cast recording of Into the Woods. I was very happy with it, and I'll have to bring it up here to show Jeff so that he can marvel at the beauty and talent of Bernadette Peters. We watched it Saturday evening, and I've decided I like the second act much better. It's more... allegorical, and you know how good I am with allegory, so basically it slapped me in the face with it, but I still love it. And Amy got me something, too. I'd asked for a small CD rack so I could put it on my desk and hopefully clean up some of the nightmare that it is. So, I now have a CD rack. It turns and holds 80 CDs. Thanks Amy!

That's interesting. By saying, "you know how good I am with allegory," despite my knowing perfectly well that you probably hadn't any idea how well I dealt with allegory, I was able to convey to you how good I am with allegory through the use of the formula. Neat.

Saturday morning dress rehearsal went okay. We only ran a few moments into the choir's time (about 5 minutes), and so we were done by about 10:30. Bobbette and I went to her house after calling Arte, and I played with her new recorder while she fed her animals. Then we practiced. When I got to my parents' house, my sister was watching Pirates of the Carribean, having just purchased a copy last week. So I watched it, too. Very nicely done, well-acted. The plot drew me in and kept me there, despite being just a bit far-fetched. Johnny Depp was, to say the least, fabulous. And sexy. Wanted to shag him right then and there. Well, maybe not in the living room. But yes. Then Into the Woods, and then random television for a while until Degrassi: The Next Generation came on. I like that show, even though it's for teenagers. I think it deals very well with real issues and everything else you hear said about such shows. Plus Marco's cute.

Sunday, the first concert went okay. Not great, but not poorly. The audience still enjoyed it. The second concert went better, in my opinion. The trumpets said they had a harder time in the second one, but I couldn't hear any problems. I think I'll see if I can borrow the "Olde English Aires" from BrightonMusic for the quartet to play in our upcoming gig. Yes, that's right, the quartet has a gig. A wedding, on the 27th of December, downtown. Really our first gig since summer, though we did have a small reception for a bank opening in October (I think). Anyway, Russian Christmas Music went much better the second time. I'm glad that we've the opportunity to play more difficult pieces like that, even though the group's small and not as good as some others around here. Anyway, after the concert I rushed back to Boulder for the dlp meeting, which was good. We got a group picture in, though Jessie's been on a cruise. "Paste 'im in!" they said. Oh, and they did the sweetest thing for me. Apparently someone let slip that my birthday was the fourth. So they got me a cake and sang and everything. Candles, even, though I missed blowing out one. What a neat bunch of guys!

Today, work, school. Almost done. GSA ally training was cancelled for tonight, which makes me wonder if we'll ever have another GSA meeting. I hope Arte got my message.

Also, apparently Jason's founding the "Bois of Boulder" group, which he wants to be a social coalition of queer groups in the area. I know that we do have a coalition of sorts, Queer Town Hall, but I don't know that it's so social. I think it's a good idea, since I know almost no one outside dlp. If it weren't for dlp, I would know... Jess. And I wouldn't be on speaking terms with Craig. And that would really suck. I just hope Jason does a good job with it, because we definitely need coordination in the community here.

Well on my way to having my poetic license revoked:

As snow piles up on the ground,
And on the internet I dick around,
Time keeps on passing
And instead of you sassing
I should into my head some facts pound.

Wheeeeeeee!!! So... now I have a blog.

Wheeeeeeee!!! So... now I have a blog.

This weekend: whew. Busy as ever. Okay, well not really, but here's what happened.

Friday night, I go to my parents' house to spend the weekend. Watched television, went to bed. Fun. Oh, and my sister's engaged. With a ring and everything. Looks like the One Ring to me, only without the creepy Mordor writing. They're going to get them engraved when they're married, and then they'll become wedding bands.

Saturday, I get up about 9, shower etc, head over to Bobbette's about 10 to have quartet rehearsal. She had just found out about Arte really being a girl on Wednesday, and is cool with it but thinks Arte needs to make a decision as to whether she's going to portray herself as a man or a woman. Anyway, they had a long talk about it, and then Bobbette called me back and we have a relatively long talk about it as well. Anyway, so I decided that I should come out to Bobbette and Eizo, who are also in the quartet. Well, I came out to Bobbette, but I didn't quite get the chance for Eizo. We also had a couple extra violinists that came, Chan and his girlfriend Jen. Chan's okay, but not as good as Eizo. And Jen's not as good as Chan is. But, they're both decent players, so we'll see how things turn out. I also got to play with Bobbette's new digital recorder. Yay! That was fun, but I couldn't get it to play out to her sound system (we think we hooked up the cords wrong). Well, more to play with next week.

At 1, Bobbette and I went over to Orchestra rehearsal. The director, Kat, was out of town, so I lead this week. I think we had a good rehearsal. We went through all the pieces we're going to play in the Christmas concert, and had time to really work on a few. It was definitely a good rehearsal.

Then, after that, I went back home. Mom and I went out to get some food for dinner (chicken) and a couple movies for the night (The Hours and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat). Mom made dinner and I watched. Then we watched The Hours, which I had to watch for my Intro to LGBT Studies class. It was good, not as good as the book (by Michael Cunningham), though. Then, we watched some tv and eventually went to bed.

Today, Sunday, I got up, read the comics (which is definitely something I miss when I'm at my apartment), and had a breakfast of croissants and omelettes. Yum! Then, eventually, mom and I decided to watch Joseph, which... is... weird, but very good. I like the music (but then, it's Andrew Lloyd Weber, so what should I expect?). Costuming was very good also. The settings were... weird. Weirder than I thought they'd be for a story from the Bible.

Anyway, then I took my shower, watched some of Nightmare Before Christmas and went to jazz rehearsal, which I was again directing. It was okay, but not the best rehearsal I've led. Oh well. Then, home again for dinner and back to my apartment to drop off some of my stuff. Then, to Delta Lambda Phi Interest Group meeting. It was... actually pretty boring this week. Oh well, that's what I get for walking in late, after the gladitorial combat. And now, I'm writing this blog instead of my french homework, which I'm not going to do anyway tonight. So there. And that's my weekend.

In hopes of starting a tradition, a bad limerick:

What is it that I've I never done?
I've never had sex with someone.
I've never been drunk
A class ever flunked
Or turned down the chance for a pun!