dianaschnuth

I really need to stop going to bed so late, being tired all day, and taking hour-long evening naps after work. It’s just not working out.

So, on Sunday I was in a parade in Birmingham, Michigan. Why was there a parade in the middle of May in Michigan, you ask? Well, let me tell you: it was the Basset Hound Parade. I shit you not. Upwards of 500 Basset Hounds brought up the rear of this relatively short parade (and those of us who marched in it were glad they were at the back of the lineup, so as to avoid any… surprizes).

Anyway, it was the first public performance of the full Lakeshoremen Drum & Bugle Corps, and we did fairly well. I did discover that I need to do some more aerobic cardiovascular-type exercise, because after the first run of our parade tune, marching uphill—hell, remembering how to march at all—I was pretty winded. But once I remembered how to breathe properly and pace myself, I did OK. I’m not really muscle-sore at all, except for my shin muscles. The… gastrocnemeus, is it? I seem to remember that from stretching and calisthenics in the BGSU Marching Band. Yeah, my shin muscles. The ones that crank your toes really high when you march in a parade. Those are still sore today. Other than that, my face got a little sun, despite my application of sunscreen, and my bare forearms got a little toasty.

But worst of all: the part in my hair got sunburnt. My scalp. A teeny little strip of my scalp.

Last night, I sat watching TV, and realized that it kind of hurt and was a little moist, like it wished it could blister, or like it had. I picked away the few gummy nasty parts I found, thought little else of it, and went to bed. This morning when I woke up, I had freaking little crystallized crusties growing in my part. It was like rock candy or some shit, kind of crusty but gooey and clingy to my strands of hair. Really, really gross. I managed to get it all out and look presentable, since I didn’t have enough time this morning to shower before work, but all day it was still sore. In a while, I’m going to go upstairs and take a cool shower and ever so gently massage my scalp. Maybe I’ll put some lotion or something on my scalp, although I’m not so sure how that’s going to work out…

I was sick of the cat bugging me a while ago, so I closed the door down here to the basement for a little peace and quiet. I’d better go open it now and make sure the cat isn’t causing havoc.

Yesterday: Aaron and I went to BG to meet up with Timmay for lunch at Campus Pollyeyes. Their salads are friggin’ gigantic, so we weren’t too sad about watching Tim eat his yummy breadsticks. It occurred to us that they always kinda sit funny in your stomach, anyway—not in any sort of “sour grapes” sort of way, but in thinking of how Aaron and I would react to so much bread right now.

We spent two hours there at Pollyeyes, talking and catching up. Tim told the best drunk story ever, including him passing out on the train and being awakened at the end of the line and having to walk five miles home while calling his passed-out roommate who’s locked Tim out without his keys and then Tim eating breakfast at a local diner and finally breaking into his own apartment to find his roommate passed out in the bathroom. Classic story, and better than anything that ever happened at BGSU. I miss Tim. Heh.

After hanging out with Tim, we hit Goodwill and the Woodville Small, then went back up to Best Buy to purchase a scanner. Scanners these days are so cool. We got one that scans transparencies (most do now) and comes with this spiffy-assed scanning software that automatically detects where the pictures are on a strip of film and brings them up as thumbnails. Holy crap! Soooo cool. (Or maybe I’ve been away from cutting-edge technology for a while, having graduated college and all, and am just out of the loop.)

So, that was Saturday in a nutshell. Today involved me getting up and leaving the house around 9:20, getting ass-raped by the National City ATM (since the Sky ATM isn’t exactly close to home), getting half a tank of gas, and driving up to Clawson. There I met Barb and Russ, and they drove the rest of the way to the first official LakeShoremen full-corps rehearsal in Montrose, Michigan. Basically, a three-and-a-half hour trip one way for me. Rehearsal was from 1:00 to about 4:00, and was quite productive and very cool. We got to rehearse in an Ensemble setting with the percussion, then put the colorguard with the group as we figured out a parade formation. It’ll be interesting to see how the parade goes in two weeks—we didn’t get to actually move the parade block outside of the gym, as outdoor practicing was noise-prohibitive. (The drumline tried it and got called by the superintendent within five minutes.) In other related news, I started getting that old familiar twinge in my middle back, below my shoulder blades—the one I get when I stand at attention with my horn up for extended periods of time. It’s not an “ouch I hurt something” feeling; more of a “hmm I don’t use that muscle much and it’s really starting to feel hot and cold at the same time and it’ll be sore later” kind of feeling. And, yes, it’s sore right now.

Anyway, I finally got home around 7:15pm. Long day. Aaron had dinner just about done when I got home: barbecued chicken and grilled yellow squash. Mmm. He’s off doing food shopping now. He did my job of laundry earlier in the day. He’s so cool. I’m so lucky. *contented sigh*

There were some of my friends in drumcorps who thought it would be great if a corps named themselves “Your Butt.” Not a name like the Cadets or the Vanguard or the Scouts or anything like that, but Your Butt. The one-liners would be great:

Ladies and Gentlemen, from Flint, Michigan: Your Butt!
Drum Major Dan Clouse, is Your Butt ready?
Your Butt may take the field in competition!

And so on. I’m only reminded of such things because I was thinking about my butt.

If you were too squeamish to read the LJ-cut from my last entry, you may not know that my butt is not exactly in shape yet. (Have you been looking?) Anyway, I located the post I was thinking of:

15 December 2003: Ladies—have you ever been walking behind someone, maybe someone at work, and finally taken a good look at their ass? And then you say to yourself, ‘My God… I hope my ass doesn’t look like that!’

While searching for this quotable, though, I did discover that I’ve been feeling uncomfortable about my ass for some time now. Almost exactly one year ago, in May of 2003, I said, “BTW, I never realized how dimply my big ass was until I cranked around and looked at it in the mirror at home, framed by the wondrous thong. I know, you didn’t want to think about that. Well, neither did I. Deal.”

Heh. Yeah. Except I wasn’t on Atkins then, and I was 41 pounds heavier than I am now. (!!!) Now I know I can do something about my butt if I give it a good try.

One other thing: You know when you’re sitting in the back seat of a car, and all you can see of yourself in the rearview mirror is your nose, chin, and neck? I used to hate that; I’d crane my neck to get my double-chin to finally almost disappear, and then just get depressed. Well, today I went to lunch with some folks from Lockbox, and sat in the back seat—and saw no double-chin! Holy crap, it’s gone! It’s really, totally gone.

And I don’t miss it.

Yesterday’s LakeShoremen Brass rehearsal wasn’t all that bad. I drove an hour and a half up to Clawson and met my ride, Barb and Russ, and then rode with them the 40 minutes up to Holly from their house. We ended up arriving 15 minutes late—and not because of me, either, thank goodness. Rehearsal lasted about three hours total (two hours playing, one hour bullshitting). Paul, incidentally, didn’t show up and didn’t tell anyone for sure that he wouldn’t be there. He told one person that he might not make it if he couldn’t find a sitter for the kids, but that’s not the same.

Next Sunday’s full-corps rehearsal is up in Montrose… another half hour farther north than this Sunday’s. I’m leaving my place at 9:15am to be at the Braman household by 11:00am, and to Montrose by 1:00pm. Is this really worth it for a four-hour rehearsal?

I guess we’ll know for sure when our first parade happens on May 16th…

My fingers aren’t too keen on typing right now—I just got back in from doing a little over an hour of yardwork. Forgot to take a picture of what it looked like beforehand, but I’ve got almost all of the out-of-control forsythia bushes hacked down. Don’t worry, I took cuttings, so they’ll be back… only much more controlled next time.

This afternoon, Fries helped Aaron pick up our free washer and dryer from Aaron’s buddy Joe from work. I guess he had some issues getting the washer hooked up—the hose connector squirts everywhere, which is ungood. We need to hit Lowe’s tomorrow and get some new hoses or hose fittings or something.

Actually, we have a whole crapload of stuff that needs to be done around the house, especially outside. Doesn’t it just figure that this is when the drumcorps season starts to kick in with extra weekend rehearsals and parades and such? That pretty much wipes out about every other Sunday from now until early September, with a few exceptions. To make it worse, the initial joy of being in a drumcorps again has been overshadowed by the insanely long distance I have to drive to get to rehearsals now. But I can’t back out: 1.) because I know I’d regret it later, and 2.) because I committed to stick out at least this season and probably another one or two on top of that. Oh, yeah, and 3.) because I’m the only damn mellophone. Four or five trumpets, four baritones, a tuba, and one lowly mellophone. Poor Diana. No pressure, none at all. *crosses eyes* Oh, yeah, and did I mention I can’t get excited about practicing at all?

That reminds me: I need to e-mail my potential car-pool hookup from Clawson to Holly. I’m not planning to ride with Paul again. The caravan thing didn’t really appeal to me. Nope. Kind of defeated the purpose. So, not again.