randomness 4 Comments

Responsible Decisions

Having received severance and retention pay from my former employer, then having landed a job relatively soon after, I recently found myself with several thousand dollars burning a hole in my ING Direct savings account.

So many possibilities flooded my imagination. Another vacation to Japan? Or a trip to Ireland? Or maybe someplace else?

Alas, the grown-up part of me seized hold and reminded me that I have several thousand dollars in credit card debt that should really be paid down.

That’s not saying that this Christmas won’t be more kick-ass than usual, of course. There will also be a dishwasher in our future. And perhaps the professional installation of some ceiling fans, in view of the astronomical cost of installing central air in a house with no ductwork.

Generally, though, responsible finances reign. Oh, well.

video 1 Comment

Spirit of Christmas Past (1992, to be exact)

A day or two after the Holiday Concert in 1992 (my Junior year of high school), I came into choir to find a VHS tape on my chair. Someone had given me a copy of the jazz band, concert choir, and wind ensemble performances from the concert — all of which I had performed in, and in one of which I’d had a solo. It’s obviously a copy of Mrs. Albrecht’s tape — she was the mom who was at every single performance with her giant late 80’s / early 90’s VHS camcorder. I’m sure someone else must have been taping, too, but they wouldn’t have focused in on the red-headed bass so often. 🙂

This video brought back so many great memories of high school. I’d forgotten I had any, honestly; when I think of high school, I think of my being a misfit of sorts. Watching this reminded me of what a great time I had in choir and band, and the great relationships (if not quite friendships) I had with my classmates. Fun times were had, like taking Geometry with the choir president, who claimed he knew a hit man who would break our teacher’s leg if we could collect a certain amount of money from everyone in the class. But I digress.

As I reviewed this tape, I also remembered every note and almost every word of every song. As I watched Ms. Beall cue the choir’s first note, I found myself singing along, accents and all: “GLO – RY to God in the hi-igh-eeeest—” She was a great director, especially considering that she had to accompany at the same time. (I’m sure she still is a great director, too, although these days she’s directing the junior high kiddies.)

The first thing I noticed while watching my solo (bookmarked in the above embedded video — just hit Play to hear my, um, glorious voice) is that the camera really does add ten pounds. As does that damnable outfit — mainly the cummerbund. When I was sixteen, I weighed about twenty pounds less than I do today, as I recall, although you’d never know it from this video.

The next thing I noticed was how nervous I was. It was funny: I hadn’t watched this video for years before digitizing it yesterday. Still, as I watched my younger self descend the risers and take her place in front of the microphone, my heart started to pound and my breath quickened with the memory of my nerves. It had definitely shown in my voice, too, as my normally smooth vibrato morphed into a nervous tremolo, and any semblance of breath support whooshed away with every quick catch-breath.

After not having seriously sung for so long, I’m taken aback by how mature I tried to sound at age sixteen. I’ve been known to sing to myself every now and then these days, and I don’t even have that dark and mature of a sound now (unless I’m being silly and singing all “looly-loo,” as Aaron puts it). To my ear, so many years later, it sounds a little forced. Overall, though, not bad for a high-schooler.

I won’t subject you to the jazz band or the wind ensemble. The memories are fun, but the music is painful. Especially the one *really* wrong note from the saxophones in the middle of Russian Christmas Music. The entire jazz band performance is pretty painful, too, come to think of it. (Remind me later to tell you about Ryan Galmarini, our drummer, aka Eternal Freshman. Priceless stuff. Jazz band rehearsals were awesome.)

I never found out exactly why I was given a copy of the performance, or by whom, or if anyone else was given a copy, too. I’m grateful either way, though, because this is the only visual record I have of myself performing with any of my high school ensembles.

Hope you enjoy. Happy Christmahanukwanzakah!

PS – For the music geeks in the crowd, here’s links to the specific songs in the concert:

“Be Not Afraid” — Jacobson/Lojeski
  Bass feature: Bill Coersmeyer and Matthew Albrecht
  Women’s trio: Jenny Waddle, Diana Cook, Cheri Burdell, and Amy Gumm
“Pat A Pam” — Simeone
  Flute soloist: Melody Marco
“Christmas Hymn” — Baker/Jungst
  Echo chamber group:Jennifer Waddle, May Ying Thao, Cheri Burdell, Brian Murawski
  Conducted by Bill Coersmeyer
“I Wonder As I Wander” — Niles
  Soloist: Diana Cook
“December Child” — Moline/Hayward
  Soprano duet #1: Jennifer Reisner and Elise Bond
  Soprano duet #2: May Ying Thao and Amy Thao
“Twelve Days After Christmas” — Silver

webdesign 2 Comments

End of an Era

I finally did it.

After turning the thought over in my head for months now, I finally submitted my resignation as LSM webmaster.

It’s nothing against them. It’s just a reorganization of priorities for me. I can only handle so many projects at a time, and can only keep focused on so much. I’m sure that there is someone actively participating in the corps who has HTML skills and can do just as good a job as I did. Or better, probably.

I just haven’t been devoting the amount of time to the website that the corps deserves, and it’s been like that for quite a while now. LSM deserves more than I’m currently giving them. And I deserve to be cut free of the guilt I’ve been giving myself over that very issue.

The announcement feels like a weight lifted from my mind.

writing 2 Comments

Writin’ My Novel With A Stick In The Sand

The astute observer will have noted that my NaNoWriMo word count has not moved since the end of the first week of November. This is not for lack of updating — this is for lack of writing.

I had a strong start. I cycled between four subsets of characters, and wrote one chapter for each. I’ll share their synopses, even though you may not care:

Character Set #1 is a married couple who has recently suffered a miscarriage (art imitating life? what?), which is nearly unheard of in this future society of DNA analysis and “selective progenesis”. They go to therapy, as prescribed by their doctor, but it is unhelpful. The wife ends up submitting her late embryo’s perfectly healthy DNA to an online service which is able to provide her with digital images of what her child might have looked like at various ages. She becomes obsessive and delusional, despite the therapy.

Character Set #2 is a teenaged couple; he was raised at home, she in a centralized government children’s home — an orphanage of sorts, although her parents may very well be alive, but allowed her to come to term without having successfully applied to have a child. This couple ends up experimenting with multiple simultaneous partners and drugs — basically, the girl invites the boy and his friends to an orgy at the children’s home.

Character Set #3 is another married couple, but this couple has had their child application denied. The buggy DNA belongs to the husband, who is summarily sterilized so as to prevent his mutation from spreading into the gene pool. His wife is unable to face the prospect of a childless future, and serves him divorce papers.

Character Set #4 brings back a familiar face: the doctor from Sets #1 and #3. This doctor has been practicing since before “selective progenesis” became government policy, and hates having to have people sterilized and having to terminate pregnancies for a few shady genes (or SNPs, if you prefer — Amy, I’m looking at you). He joins an underground society whose focus is saving fetuses which would otherwise be “reclaimed,” or terminated and collected for research purposes.

There was almost a Set #5, involving a law enforcement official who specialized in finding people who attempted to subvert the progenesis laws. After writing about a paragraph, I realized that I didn’t know enough about the process of detective work or about the inner workings of law enforcement officials and their driving sense of justice. (“Think Javert,” I have in my notes on this character.)

When I started the cycle anew, I got to a roadblock. I didn’t know what happened next with Set #1. So, I skipped them and moved to Set #2, whom I liked better, anyway. Then I realized that my NaNo could so easily turn into a smut book, even though I did have a focus for their story (guess who gets knocked up and ends up connecting with the rebellious doctor to save her baby?).

Then I just got distracted, and, well, there went the NaNo. Now I have decent starts to three, count ’em, three stories. And that doesn’t count the dozens of shitty false starts I have, too.

I’m not overly disappointed. A little, sure, but think about it. This ended up NOT being the month I could or should have concentrated all my effort on writing. New job, mainly, plus stuff with the sangha and trying to wrap up some of my other long-term projects (which I haven’t officially wrapped up yet, and I’m feeling kind of guilty about… but more on that later, probably).

I’ll get back to it eventually. I’ll try to plow through it, too, NaNo-style, and not think too hard about the details. That’s what editing is for.