November 30th, 2008 20:35
Enter your password to view commentsThings Kirilisa does not like about womanhood
1) Padded bras. I do not understand why ALL bras except for A-cup ones are PADDED. Why? Why? I do not like padded bras. I will not wear them. They are scary, and uncomfortable, and make a weird ugly line under your shirt. I remember being a small child and being in Filene’s or some such with my mother, trailing along behind her as she marched through the racks of stuff, and every time I saw the padded bras I would carefully punch each cup – there was something very satisfying in watching the squashy material collapse inward, and also in leaving a tidy row of deflated-looking bras in my wake. But, that was back in the day where padded bras were an OPTION, not a NECCESITY. I cannot freaking find any non-padded bras no matter where I go, and consequently my underwear drawer is in sad disarray, and on the weekend I do not bother at all.
2) Tampons with no applicator. I realize that applicator tampons are really only common in the US, but I don’t understand why. Yes the environment and all, but… who wants to go sticking their hand up there anyway? Yecch.
3) Other things, but 1 & 2 are the ones most annoying me right now.
Band gabble
Hmm. Have not heard back from Mr. Transbalkan, but I did meet up with a bunch of other people via my gumtree.com.au ad on Thursday night. It was funny, really…
So I had put out this ad "Intermediate tenor sax looking for other people to play jazz with" and the first guy who responded was a French trumpet player who is over here studying jazz for a while. I did not answer him because I was being a pansy (and because he sounded like he’d be very much into the technical/theory aspect of it and that is most definitely not how I work regarding music, and besides, if he’s styudying and everything, I figured he would think I suck). The next guy who got back said he had gotten a bunch of guys together and they wanted a 2nd tenor and so in spirt of non-pansiness, I went and met up with them last Thursday.
So I got there, and there were two trumpets, a drummer, bongo guy, electric bass, guitar, and me. The other sax was sick. And about halfway through, I realized that one of the trumpet players was in fact the same trumpet player who had gotten back to me first, and moreover, it seems he had known who I was all along! How embarassing!
But we had a FANTASTIC time. At least, I did! I really, really enjoyed it – it was an excellent setup, the lower floor of the bass player’s house, really spacious and nice, and the guitar player had a whole bunch of charts, and everyone was really friendly, and no one was so good that I felt too bad. And I realized that I can read E-flat music 
They couldn’t find the tenor sax part for Sing Sing Sing so I started off reading trumpet 3 (since that is B-flat music) but ended up playing the bari sax part since that is a lot more similar to what tenor would have been. But of course bari sax music is written for an E-flat instrument, but it was no problem for me to read! I’d never really tried it before so this was a fantastic discovery. Just pretend bass clef 
So we’re going to get together and practice every week and maybe get some gigs! And I’m hoping it will help to cure me of my pansiness disease.
Anyway, with BSB Swing, tomorrow is our final Swing gig of the year. it’s another park gig, but should be ineteresting because some swing dancers are coming along. I’m a bit frustrated because the leader has not yet sent out the chart list, which fact is aggravating. It would be nice to know what we will be doing! I live in fear of the Pennsylvania 6-5000 nightmare.
Honestly, I’m been getting discouraged regarding Swing band recently. We’ve had a new leader all this year, and he is a good leader, and has definitely been very good for us as a band, whipping us into shape, but he isn’t what you’d call sympathetic. The few times I have asked him something (e.g. to run through a certain chart), he agrees, but never ever remembers. Moreover, I always get the feeling that he is slightly embarassed to be associated with us — we simply aren’t good enough for someone of his calibre. He treats us like a job, and in fairness we are a job for him, but it would be nice if he felt like PART of us, rather than us being his job, if that makes sense. Anyway, because of this sense I get from him, my whole improv paranoia has only really gotten worse in the months since I’ve started being 1st tenor. And I KNOW it is not his problem, but mine, and I must must must learn to get over it, but I feel kind of stuck. And some part of me just wants to throw in the towel and say… I can’t do it… I’m simply not good enough… I don’t have it in me. As it is I’m constantly getting stressed out about these Swing gigs, that I used to love, because I never know what will be pulled, and because I always feel like I am so crashingly inadequate. I haven’t even been practicing lately because I feel so tense about it, which is completely counter-productive! I guess I shouldn’t have volunteered to be the second 1st tenor, but I did not know that the first 1st tenor was going to ditch out immediately thereafter, and none of the other tenors can really fill the part (nor wants to I must add!)
This fear thing is really not a good cycle, and one I need to get out of. I can’t blame it on anyone because it is my own stupid head putting me in this position! Still, I need to come up with a plan of action. Obviously, I will get better at this stuff over time. but I need something a bit more concrete than this. As things are going right now, I am really ruining it for myself, but I don’t know how to get out of it.
Thanksgiving memories
CMI Thanksgiving went terrifically well and there was sooooo much food and I found an awesome cranberry sauce recipe (well, the kirilisa-altered version, since I thought they used way too much sugar) and we had 5 free turkeys and D. made really tasty pumpkin pie.
And I got my sax back and it is like a new sax, everything is replaced and new and nice and the keys are all right now and it doesn’t take huge finger muscles to hold them down and it doesn’t take huge amounts of air to play anything and it doesn’t click anymore and it’s easier to get the high notes in tune.
And I think I might tell the Transbalkan guy I will give it a go — live a little, right?
Yet despite the day being such a good day — V. and I had a grand old time this morning, cooking the million potatoes etc. etc. and swimming and just hanging out — I find myself a little despondant tonight. Perhaps it is because there has been a lot of activity and I am flat worn out, perhaps the slow dripping of the persistant drizzle, perhaps the thought that tomorrow is Thanksgiving, and only my mother and my little sister will be together, the rest of us so many of thousands of miles apart.
And it isn’t like we were ever a family that or spent much time together, or ate dinner together even, or any of that, and yet Thanksgiving was always special in its way — at least for most of the years, the 4 kids would come back and sleep in our old beds again, and my mother would get up early, running frantically all over the place trying to get everything cooked and stuffed, inevitably burning the cranberry sauce, panicking, forcing my little sister and me to stand at the stove, grumbling and picking out the black bits and later, asking worriedly every 3 minutes, "Can you tell that it’s burned??"
The memory of waking up Thanksgiving morning, wandering sleepily into the kitchen in old shorts and a tank top, seeing pumpkin and apple pies stacked neatly on the sideboard, my mother grappling some giant turkey in the sink. And the day was always grey, cold, and we kids would wander aimlessly around all the morning, strangely happy to be together again after a year of rarely seeing each other, joking, bumping into each other as we try to set the table, the tablecloth inevitably too small and sliding off one side or the other. My little sister, taller and bigger than me for so many years now, sneaking up behind me, pinning my arms, lifting me up and swinging me around ridiculously.
And then finally all would be ready, and we’d drink a toast, my little sister stealthily trying to get the fullest glass, me gulping it down so that my mother frowned at me and gave me the Great-Uncle Clement was an alcoholic speech, and then — food, my tiny mother carving a giant turkey, me and my brother fighting over the stuffing dish, taking appallingly enormous amounts, drowning it all in gravy. And afterward how we would stagger out into the yard and play demented-Riordan-version capture the flag, teams uneven since my mother always wanted to play too; racing madly through the grass, crawling guerilla-style through our little bit of woods, peering desperately around for the enemy, the mad shrieks as someone’s lying in wait paid off, the endless squabbles of whether or not the flag was actually hidden in a legal spot or not.
And then — the first snowflakes, floating down to disappear in the dead yellow-brown grass, the air so cold and sharp as to hurt your nostrils. And we’d all tramp back in, spend the rest of the evening building a fire and squabbling over the good seat, eating leftover pie for dinner, sprawling around in the living room reading whatever junk we can find lying around.
Ugh. I feel vaguely like lying on my face and crying.
It doesn’t help that I’m disappointed in myself again today, for not doing my best at something, and for letting someone’s casual statement hurt my feelings.
It’s nothing sleep won’t fix.
News, news
Tomorrow we are celebrating American Thanksgiving at work, and consequently I am in charge of cooking 1 stuffed turkey, cranberry sauce, gravy, and mashed potatoes for 80 people!
I do not own a cauldron large enough.
Today my friend-of-no-name helped me chop what seemed like 50,000 onions in preparation and, after boasting what a great chopper he was, cut off the very tip of his thumb! Into the onions! Blech!! I say it is definitely a pride goeth before a fall thing 
)
Tomorrow I get my sax back! I called the guy today and he said that he just finished it and he is extremely happy and it turned out very very well. So I am terribly excited.
A whole bunch of people have gotten back to my gumtree ad that I put out looking for other intermediate-ish people to muck around and play jazz stuffs with. In typical fashion, I was rather afraid of getting back to any of them (unconfidence always haunts) but I did get back to at least one, who has a 6-piece or thereabouts band, that I’m hoping to go along and play with as soon as I get my sax back. A couple others I haven’t replied to yet — being a coward.
And then, unsolicited, someone on facebook, who apparently knows a girl I knew 8 years ago, for 3 months while playing pit orchestra for a summer light opera group, asked me if I wanted to play tenor with his Balkan/gypsy band. I’m rather inclined to give it a go, in fact, though I know nothing about Balkan music and as ever I am worried I won’t be good enough… And of course, as I said earlier, mrtee would be mad! Balkans!
Oi. Kettricken is simultaeously crying and trying to chew a hole through her leg. Poor itchy dog! I don’t undersatnd why she persists in sleeping on ant hills…
Bed. The rain has deliciously begun.
Yuk
The problem with being super busy every evening and on the weekend is that you never get a chance to do important things like laundry and buying food.
Consequently, dinner tonight was scary eggs, pickles, gouda and the worst ancient zucchini I have ever cooked/tasted. Possibly something to do with the fact that it was covered with grey fuzz before I cooked it… but I washed it and it wasn’t that mushy so I figured it wouldn’t kill us 
Zaubi might be mad if he reads that!
Today I got drunk off a Benedryl. Woke up this morning with head all stuffed up and nose bleeding. Went to work sneezing: took a Benedryl and shortly thereafter realized I had completely lost my ability to think! Even walking took fantastic concentration. Ugh, that stuff is almost as bad as morphine. I kept my mouth studiously shut because I knew if I opened it I would start babbling embarassing things just like I did last year when i was drugged up in hospital. Never again!
Am down tonight: Zaubi is involved in a frustrating situation and gave me some kinda bad news earlier today. Can’t really discuss it in front of the world: shall continue in friends-only post.
Another week ends, again
Orpheus went pretty well, really; not as well as I wanted of course (but when is it ever?) but well enough. Glad that’s over.
Afterwards a woman came and tried to recruit me to lead the seconds in the Indooroopilly Chamber Orchestra. Back when I was playing the Philanthropic in October, a violist tried to recruit me for the same thing (the lady I talked to tonight said he was the conductor? dunno) but then I forgot. Anyway, it’s unlikely that I could go given they rehearse Thursdays… and I’m not sure if I want to continue doing any orchestra come the new year. Chamber music would be nice… just don’t have anyone to do it with, though.
Altogether it was a nice weekend. Really beautiful weather, no more storms. Went swimming in the pool yesterday (skinny dipping, if truth be told: still secure in the perhaps-illusion that the neighbours don’t look out their window — it’s so much trouble to put on a bathing suit, you see!)
Fixed stuff around the house, too. There is actually now a light on the back patio. What a change. No more grilling and hanging laundry in the dark!
Just watched Moulin Rouge. I last saw it years and years ago, at MIT, in some dark little room at MIT in bldg 4, with a whole bunch of weird people I didn’t know. I vaguely remembered it being surreal, but not THAT surreal! Whoa. Zaubi and I laughed heartlessly through all the emotional scenes, and afterwards he did a deeply touching rendition of the death scene with additional sound effects.
A friend of mine at work (blast.. I need to find him an LJ name) loaned/recommended it to me… boy oh boy am I going to have fun mocking him a work tomorrow! A man! Liking Moulin Rouge! The ‘like a virgin’ song was simultaneously amusing and appalling, but more appalling than amusing. All those men in tight pants! The jellies! Man! Poor old fill-in-the-blank must be a right pervert [In fairness, I'm not sure he remembers that part...]
cannot brain today!!
My little sister just sent me this lolcat.
Oh, so funny, so funny!
I’m tempted to blow it up, print it out, and stick it on the door of my office.
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