Equation.

I have no idea what that title means. It just popped into my head. 

Someone just drove by my house and slowed way down and looked at me. That was creepy. Maybe this porch isn't the best place to do illegal things at this hour. Or maybe we just need a back porch.

In other unfortunate news regarding my current porch situation, I almost burned my soup. That's right. Before I came outside, I put some soup on the stove, then totally forgot about it until I had been outside for a few minutes. I remembered just at the crucial moment, then dashed in and saved the soup.

Someone just slammed on their brakes at the stop light by my house. 

Maybe I should write a blog about people watching on my porch and everything I see. In a few minutes I could write about the convertible parked in front of the house next door with its top down gets robbed just after its owner  leaves in the passenger seat of another car.

The other night I attempted to boycott a percussionist at my college. I have nothing against her, and we're on very friendly terms. I just thought it would be interesting to try to boycott another human being. Just, you decide there's a boycott and suddenly they no longer exist. You could probably write your congressman and ask that this person be prosecuted for existing.

I just saw two women walking with a young child down the sidewalk. As soon as I looked, the kid tripped and fell. I seriously need to make a new blog about my people watching.

Stay classy, world. Peace out.

Freedom.

It's getting close. I've already established this morning that it smells like barbecue. I'm not really smelling beer or weed, just barbecue, but I'm sure it's involved. For now, I'll settle with my blonde brownie and my history paper.

I've been whining about this paper for quite a while in this blog by now, which is a bit ridiculous. It's only a five page paper. Nothing!! But therein lies the problem: it's only a five page paper. Trying to condense the rather interesting (and long) life of a composer into a five page paper is more difficult than rattling on for twenty. And at first, I was just going on all this great detail, which would be wonderful if I was writing a chapter in a book or a higher level and longer research paper. But when I looked at what I had done, I had at least two pages, and I wasn't even through college yet. This concludes my latest whine about my paper.

I'm getting sick of the segments on CNN where people send in videos of themselves. People shouldn't be allowed to talk publicly. Actually, the lady who was just on was pretty cool. They're talking about the swine flu thing, and she gave a demonstration of using hand sanitizer. What a great idea! A bit sad that people need a demonstration of that, but we'll pretend it's okay.

I've discovered that, counter to logic or intuition, blonde brownies on a really hot day are heavenly. They get all melty. Mmmmmmelty.

I'm not stoned.

Promise.

Often, I tend to be the advice person among my friends. You know, the one that people go to when they need help or a different perspective. This sounds like I'm bragging, but I'm really not. If anything, I'm quite perplexed because I can't even handle my own life. But in this vein, I've been giving a lot of advice to a very close friend who is dating for the first time in years. I find this particularly ironic, because my own love life is in absolute shambles.

Even more ironic, hearing all of this from my friend is getting to me. It makes dating something that I want to try again. This feeling hasn't ever really left, but even the thought of it gets me down. After my last few relationships, I just get sleepy when I think about doing it again. 

It gets just a bit worse when I start to think of what is motivating me to want to date again. It would be nice to think of it as the natural yearning for a partner, but it usually seems like I just crave the security in it. But then, I see the downside of people being secure in their relationships (no explanation is coming) and I wonder if it's maybe a better idea to just wait a bit longer.

I certainly hope you didn't waste too much time reading that.

I think there's more to say about things, but I'm going to call it done for now.

Advice for gays: Choose your battles. Not every tiny offense can honestly be called a major issue. Discrimination in the workplace: fucking huge issue. Don't ask, don't tell: pretty big issue. Marriage equality and adoption rights: big issue. AIDS research and awareness: really big issue. People calling things gay: not an issue. Lyrics in rap music: not an issue. Religions not accepting homosexuality: not an issue and not going to change. Work on the things that we can actually do something about.

The Office

is where I am writing from today. You thought I was talking about the TV show, weren't you? Well, sadly, I'm not, because I didn't see it last week. Crap, I need to get on that. And before this Thursday, when I'm finally somewhat done with things.

I went home to Vermont this weekend. All in all, I don't really want to get into details of the trip. A lot of it wasn't fun. But I got to see some of my true loves: Nancy and Marsha. Marsha I hadn't seen in about a year. It was so nice though! Drinks and lunch at the 99. And a bowl, of course. ;-) As always, seeing Nancy is great. She's another very important fruit fly. Her kids weren't around this weekend though, which was quite sad.

I got to see my dogs this weekend too, but my dogs were pissing me off. I think that's the true gauge of just how bad of a day I'm having: how much dogs piss me off.

I hate when I drink a mocha from Starbucks and the last bit of it is pure chocolate. It's sandy feeling and way too sweet and gross and needs to stop. Now.

I just had to do stuff at work. This is work-study. That's bullshit. I quit.

I kidding.

So someone else is faxing journal articles at the moment, giving me plenty of time to look over the books for my paper on Samuel Barber. Yeah, I'm sitting here writing this instead. I don't know why, I've just been actively avoiding my entire life lately. Maybe this is more pleasant.

It's a nice day. Go outside!!

Stardom.

My little city is being visited by it. Oh yes. Angelina Jolie is in town shooting her newest movie, "Salt". It's not a huge thing: they're just closing down a major interstate for a few days to film a car chase. The chase apparently takes place on I-787 and going in and out of Empire State Plaza. I doubt I'll see this movie, due to the presence of its star, but it'd be cool to see ESP on the screen, assuming that it makes the cut as a background. I checked it out on IMDb and it's some spy movie or something, because ever since "Mr. and Mrs. Smith", Angelina is apparently some crazy bad-ass. (Not true, says I. "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" was good. But watch Uma Thurman in "Kill Bill" and tell me Angelina doesn't look like a parakeet.)

So now there are people using this as yet another platform to bitch about Albany. It's funny because as much as they whine, they made the choice to come here. Often there from hundreds of miles away, and simply going to college here. So really, there's nothing stopping them from going someplace else instead. Yet they drone on and on about how small it is without ever stopping to realize that they could probably have thought of this before they applied to school here, paid their application fee, got their letter of recommendation, wrote an essay, got accepted, signed and returned a form stating their intent to enroll, probably took a tour, registered, filled out a FAFSA in some cases, had their parents fill out a FAFSA in many cases, attended orientation, packed and moved here. 

I'm trying to embed a video: (If it doesn't work, you won't even know. If it does, now you know just how privileged you are.)

I just got a caramel macchiato, which was the most awkward caramel macchiato I've ever bought because they made me a vanilla latte at first, then asked if there was anyone I could give it to because they'd let me keep the wrong one as well, then told me that it was the same thing without the caramel, only that the shots of espresso were on top, which makes no difference because I compulsively stir my caramel macchiatos every time anyway, which really made no difference because they were already steaming the new milk. But either way, I was on a drive to hunt down her highness Jolie, so I stopped at Starbucks downtown. (I like tall[ish] buildings.) Then I forgot about my Lorna Doone 100-Cal pack that I was going to eat with my caramel macchiato. I saved it JUST in time.

So now that I can't get much gayer, I bid you adieu. Oh fuck, gayer already!

Advice for gays: Many of you will be much happier if you broaden your horizons, even on the internet. If you expand from only looking for sex to looking for things such as friendship, dates, meaningful relationships and even just interesting conversation, you'll find yourself much more satisfied at the end of the day. For example, you won't get all pissy when you talk to someone who isn't a big of a slut as you, as though suddenly trying to defend your integrity as if we perceive you to actually have some. And, even better, your crotch will probably itch much less.

Determination.

I have tons of it. Unfortunately, it's the wrong kind. I'm very determined at the moment to not do any of the stuff that I really need to. In fact, this determination is strong enough to give me an identity crisis: I'm currently writing about Samuel Barber and arranging 'Ubi Caritas' by Maurice Durufle for brass quintet while listening to Lady Gaga. Meanwhile, cute boys are walking by on the sidewalk. In perhaps the biggest news, I'm sitting in the Muddy Cup and not being cruised or hit on by anyone!! Wow.

I was going to hold off on working on my own compositions and arrangements for a little while, in favor of my many projects due before the end of the semester. But I'm actually not slacking too horribly on everything. Okay, I am, but things are starting to go places with my quintet, with getting some gigs and new music, and I haven't really been involved. Then again, we haven't rehearsed lately anyway. Rehearsals for us tend to consist of reading through pieces and deciding an order though. Very little really needs to be worked on and fixed. It's pretty great.

I got some sexy sunglasses and they're just sitting there. I'm a bit too inside and the weather looks like it's going to turn crappy soon.

In other news, I'm still not feeling well at all, but I was able to use this fact to get out of my tuba lesson today. I was going to offer to make it up during finals week, but my teacher didn't mention anything about it. I don't think he really cares since I'm one of the students he has that can actually play whether I go to lessons or not.

Yup, it's cloudy now. Damn. 

Procrastination.

So I'm 'working on my research paper for Music History', which translates into typing this blog, chatting and being incredibly busy on Facebook. I don't know why but I'm really unfocused. Oh, I think I know. It's because I'm really tired of doing stuff. Seriously, it'd be great to just sit around and read for a day or two.

Complaining aside, I'm done in a few weeks, which is nice. It seems so early though! I'm used to Castleton, where you get out in the middle of May. I know it's only the difference of a week, but this time of year seems to go so fast to me. Sometimes too fast, as there is so much I have to get done. But whatever, it will be nice.

This week is being somewhat good. Except for the amount of stuff that I'm currently not doing. And I have this weird thing where I'm not sick, but my voice is hoarse and I have a tickle in my throat, no matter how many times I clear it. 

This project I'm working on is an autobiography of a dead composer. It's a bit awkward. I'm doing mine on Samuel Barber. In all fairness, it is much easier than the 'autobiography' of the composer I had last semester, Renaissance heavyweight Heinrich Schutz. Another huge plus is that Barber wrote some great music, and though I'm a fan of Renaissance stuff, Schutz wasn't so great. 

I could have done this last night, but I went to the drag show on campus, part of Pride Week. My friend, Lou, was in it. He did a really great job. I need to expose my fruit fly to drag soon, too. It's a good time.

Speaking of a job, I need one. It's getting to be that time where I need to lie to someone and tell them that I'll be there next semester so I can score a decent job for the summer. I think I'm going to go get pizza because it's probably the worst idea right now.

My health can wait, I have a craving. Bah! Peace.

Advice for gays:  Actually, advice for all men. Gays probably need this advice the least. Don't wear body spray. Ever. For any purpose. It smells like shit and bothers people. However, if you choose to make yourself gross and use it, a couple of sprays will do. It may not be very expensive (for good reason), but you should still make the can last longer than two days. 

Update:

OMG you were so concerned about how my day was going, weren't you? I thought so because you're being cute and you're cute when you're concerned. That's putting 2 and 2 together. That's called math.

Well for you mathletes reading. it actually went pretty well. I, for one, did not royally screw up the show. 

In other news, I'm falling asleep. So good night. :)

Advice for gays: If you haven't spoken to someone in months, and the last time the two of you spoke, this person was going through an impossibly tough time, the best thing to do is lecture them about complaining too much.

Boredom.

That's right. It's happened. I'm bored. Well, to be honest, there is stuff I could be doing right now, but I have to leave for a concert in about a half hour, so there doesn't seem to be much point in starting work on something right now.

So yeah, about that concert. At least I'm almost done with Chamber Singers for the semester. I have a concert tonight, then a concert tomorrow morning, and there may be something we have to do at commencement. Either way, I checked out on that ensemble weeks ago. It was a mistake to sign up for it, one that I realized way too late. Oh well, next semester I'll be smarter about it.

So in the meantime before the concert, I am doing my laundry and writing this blog. Thrilling I tell you. But it's best to do it today. Tomorrow is pretty much out...for anything. I have that second Chamber Singers concert at 10am, then I run home and change for a concert in Bennington. By 1pm, I have to be there for sound check, with the concert at 3. Then, after that concert, I have a three hour rehearsal with the Sage City Symphony. 

Because I'm doing laundry and wanted to wash the pants I was wearing, I changed into pajamas. Big mistake. Now I'm just never going to move.

I just found something really fun: Go here and enter the name of an ex. Because it's Google Images, it's highly doubtful that your ex's photo will pop up, but what will be shown are a bunch of people who are more attractive than your ex, but with the same name. Some are, of course, less attractive, but in the end you gain pride in your decision to shoot for the middle ground.

I saw Demetri Martin at The Egg last night. It was such an amazing show! All new material, a 'question/answer' session afterward which had the feel of him basically hanging out with the audience and a marriage proposal!! That's right, this guy got Demetri Martin to work him into a routine on the piano about creative ways to propose marriage. One idea was, "You could be at at a show, and while the comedian is sitting at the piano, you could come out from backstage with a microphone in your hand..." and someone did it. So cute. SOOO friggen cute!

I think this is all. I kinda need to get going. Ugh Chamber Singers!  Ugh!!

Advice for gays: If someone declines your offer of sex over the internet, they should probably be respected, rather than verbally abused. Verbal abuse should only be involved if they accept your offer of sex. 

Casa Madormo

So I'm at my main fruit fly's house in Franklin, MA for Easter. We're hanging out on her mom's bed at the moment. Dude, these people are awesome. If you ever need to hang out with some wonderful, quirky people then you should....never mind. You should go away. They're mine.

I'm even going to church tomorrow with her and her dad. I haven't been to church in so long! (Okay, those who know me...or have read any of the debauchery present in my blog (I think...I can't actually remember anything my blog says) What am I talking about?, oh yeah, me going to church. Though I don't follow any organized religion, I love to attend services by various religions.) I forgot my collared shirt to wear under my sweater. This angered me greatly. Fortunately, I used another collared shirt that worked. Crisis solved.

Earlier I saw the very end of Twilight. I can't say that I want to watch the beginning and middle of the movie. 

I think there was other stuff that happened today. But I don't remember what it is. Oh, I bought a polo. That was fun. Yeah, that's basically it. Not a very exciting day.

OMG OMG how did I forget that we painted Easter eggs? They gave us two blues and two greens in the box, and no pink and purple. Plus the little pens to draw on them didn't work. We wound up with some friggen ugly eggs. Then we used a blue sharpie to write stuff on them. Maybe tomorrow I'll edit this post and add a picture. That may have been the highlight of my week. Well, that and when I sold my cell phone charger on the train to Vermont for double what I paid for it. 

I am diseased.

Mere just rubbed her blanky on me. Now I have the herps. Everyone has to stop giving me head on the street now. Sorry. I know you're sad. Maybe Mere should stop being such a ho. Just a thought. 

On a serious note: This is the longest my main fruit fly and I have gone without seeing each other. So we're having withdrawals and now we need to mess with each other's lives as much as possible. Earlier, she was on her way into her room with her iron, with the cord dragging behind her. So just as she was about to put it down, I stepped on the cord and tripped her. Then she gave me the herps.

She just said this:

"I only have a fraction of the bed. Like an 1/8. Wait, that's a fraction, isn't it? Yeah, that's a fraction."

Now I'm going to bed. Good night.

Advice for gays: If you want to be in the presence of waaay too many of you, try attending The College of Saint Rose. 

Where did the time go?

I'm down to 23 minutes before rehearsal.  This is so lame. It's not even a good rehearsal, either. Wednesday is bad rehearsal day, and this is the climax: Chamber Choir and Brass Choir. Now, you hear 'choir' and you think: pretty music. If  you'd like to break yourself of this habit, come to a Brass Choir concert.

Whew, it's nice to just write about stuff again. So let's see, what's going on? Well, life is still crazy, but beginning to wind down. Tomorrow I leave for Easter break. I'm taking a train to Vermont tomorrow evening, then on Saturday I'm going to Franklin, MA to visit Mere's family. Monday, I take another train back from there. In the process, I get a lesson with my old teacher, Giles, at Castleton. And I get to eat Ramunto's frigging amazing pizza!  Woooooot!

In other news, I'm contemplating moving to a different apartment. I absolutely love the one I'm in, and my roommates are amazing. But this other one is closer to campus. And since my roommates don't know if they're staying the entire time that I'm in college, it may be better to move now and know that I have a guaranteed place to stay that's practically on campus. It's such a tough decision, though.

One more thing: I'm starting a running thing on my blog called "Advice for Gays". It will mostly involve gay guys, and not lesbians. But I'm not going to specify in the title, because sometimes I have advice for them, too.

Advice for Gays: Girl is spelled with an 'i' and is only to be used on humans without penises. For example, I have a penis. And the next time you call me 'gurl', I'm going to prove that you have one, too. By holding it in my hand. The catch is that I'll be walking away from you at the time.

15 minutes. Ugh.  Peace.

New Orleans: Thursday through Saturday

The house-gutting crew, with the house in the background.

Ahhhh afternoon off...ish.  So instead of starting my research paper, doing my laundry, practicing, packing for my weekend away, studying for my Music History exam or starting my Orchestration project, I'm going to finish writing about New Orleans. Let's face it, this is much more fun, and I've been putting it off longer than anything else on that list.

So where did I leave off? I believe my last entry dealt with Wednesday night, two hours of trying to get food, me yelling a few times and finally delicious Mexican eats.

Thursday:

To be honest, I barely remember Thursday, at least the daytime part of it.  I'm pretty sure that I just gutted all day. I know if that was the case, I was exhausted by the end of it, which is probably why all the details are fuzzy. It probably doesn't help that I ate vegetables dipped in peanut butter every single day that week for lunch.

After our work day, though, we went out to a gumbo place...I can't remember the name.  Gumbo something. But if you ever get the chance to taste New Orleans gumbo, and you don't take it, you have failed as a human  being. 

Then the drama started. I believe this was on gift shop number 85 for the week. Well, a few of us wanted to go to historic Preservation Hall on the last night of the trip.  Well, really just any night but it seemed to work best on Friday. The goal was to see live jazz music being played because, let's face it, we were in New Orleans. To help people rebuild is great, but it seems strange to do so while shunning a vital piece of their culture. One person was even rumored to have said, "You can see jazz in Albany!" Our response: ".........."

So that, combined with a rather inappropriate reaction on my part made for a shittily interesting night.

Friday: 

The last day of work. Woot! In the morning, I began gutting. I was also in an incredibly bad mood from the night before, so when my crowbar disappeared, I went to painting. (I had had enough gutting at that point anyway, and welcomed the break.) After painting for an hour or so, we were beginning to run out of things to paint. (Lack of available work was the theme that week.) So I gave piggy-back rides to kindergartners instead. Every time I would go to put one down, two more were waiting to climb up. 

Just after lunch, and after playing with the kids some more, Sydney and Esteban, whose father is Spanish, came to drop off some crawfish for us. I had never eaten crawfish before. She laid a giant box of them out on a table for both groups that were working at the school. So the way to eat crawfish is to tear them in half, then suck the juice out of their body and eat the meat from the tail. They were delicious, but after a little while, the whole 'sucking the gut juice from the body of a shell fish' got to me, just as it used to when I would eat whole mussels. I stuck to the tails briefly before just ending my crawfish consumption.

After lunch, we went back to gutting, for a few more exhausting hours. By the end of the day, it was impossible to even lift the crowbar any more. I had one section of wall above a window and one section that went to the next adjoining wall, and only the top part of it. So maybe 4 feet by 5 or 6 feet of wall left to rip down. But I honestly couldn't move any more. I was more drained than I think I have ever been in my life. But then, and I do realize how cheesy this sounds, I would think about the students of the school, about giving them piggy back rides and tutoring them in English, about the stories they told of what their families went through during and after the storm, about the teddy bear that we found in the house, the cafeteria ladies who fed us, watching the principal play basketball with fourth graders and on and on and on. Reminder: I know how cheesy this is, but thinking about all of that gave me more energy than I had at the beginning of the day. I quite literally attacked the wall with all my (considerably limited) strength and when I stopped, I was panting. I would see another image and attack it all over again. This kept me going until the wall was done. When it was finished, I went outside and took my gear off--hard hat, goggles, face mask and gloves--and sat on the steps, trying not to break down. For the next fifteen minutes, I barely kept it together, spoke to almost no one and just carried some of our equipment back to the Pod. We got everything put away and took some pictures of the group in front of the school. (This picture was framed by Heath, our chaperone, who gave us each a copy during the NOLA reunion dinner last week.)

After returning to the B&B, Sydney stopped by with food for us: roasted chicken salad and other items put out buffet style. I helped by tearing about the chicken for the salad. One girl, Brittany, helped by tearing the bread because Sydney had a superstition about bread that'd been sliced. Liz, the student leader, helped by feeding Esteban oranges that apparently suffice as substitutes for his mother's quite busy nipples. It was weird. So I went back out to the group and interrupted the conversation to do impressions of Sydney. Then I showered. May I just opine that showers after long days of house-gutting in New Orleans are truly heavenly experiences?

So anyway, after dinner, four of us went to Preservation Hall to see the Jazzmasters. I'm seriously considering devoting an entirely new post to this because it was so epic. But I won't because you're kind enough to have even read this far. The group was made up of trumpet/vocals (bandleader), tenor sax, trombone, piano, bass and drums. In one tune each set, everyone traded solos; the rest of the time, it was mostly winds and sometimes piano. I can't even describe in text some of the things they pulled off. Maybe I'll make a video blog about it. That'd be fun.

After the concert, we once again basically went straight to bed. We needed to be up early to catch our flight back to Albany.

Saturday: 

Other than getting up at like 5am or some other non-existent hour, the flight back went much smoother than the flight there. We flew through Dulles Airport in D.C., which has a delightful sandwich shop and almost enough Starbucks shops to satisfy my withdrawals. After landing in Albany, I was dropped off close to my house, said goodbye, and went to rehearsal with my brass quintet. I've barely stopped since.

So there is the rest of my trip. I hope you enjoyed. I certainly love having it done so that now I can go back to writing about political stuff, boys, fruit flies, music and my favorite topic: nothing. Within the week, an album will be available at Flickr or Photobucket. 

Cheers!

Again with the delay!

Yeah, so I hate having to do this again because it makes me officially lame, but three weeks after getting back from New Orleans, I have explain yet another delay in writing about it with the same reason all over again: no time blah blah blah.  So anyway, chill, give me another day or so, and I promise it will be out as soon as I can.  I know of at least two, possibly three confirmed readers, and I hate to keep you waiting. Then again, you could probably just come over and I could tell you all about it and it'd be quicker. 

In the meantime, I leave you with this:

http://www.funnyordie.com/blog/posts/14305