Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Brick Wall

I hit the proverbial "brick wall" yesterday. I really did. I really, really did.
I remember about a month ago, I checked my April calendar. I remember thinking that the middle two weeks would be absolute insanity.

I am reaping the fruits of that insanity.

I have had something scheduled every single day (after work) and on weekends. These would be meetings, classes, field trips to Pittsburgh (but the Andy Warhol Museum was well worth the drive!) Long nights, little sleep. Oh and kids concerts and invitations to Youth Music Abroad, and signing away income tax money and field trip money and forwarding money and having no money and freaking and stressing and not sleeping and.....

I committed to the Degas project. A photo/sketch shoot of dancers at a studio. We have three weeks to turn in a painting. I thought it was a cool idea but I haven't had a free moment. I know you think I am on the internets blogging, but....

I am writing curriculum for four new classes. I thought I had until July. I have just been informed that it is all due on April 26th.

The day after the Pittsburgh trip I couldn't find my keys. I left them in my unlocked car. The Monday after I could not find my keys, went out to my car, found no keys. Walked back to my desk, found my keys but left my purse. I discovered I was purseless at the halfway to home point. I wasted about a half hour retrieving said purse. Last night I locked my keys in my car while daughter was taking flute lessons. After the "coat hanger treatment" failed, flute teacher's husband took my husband and daughter home while I sat in her gazebo, trying to stay dry. Thunder struck and the dogs howled. I huddled in the gazebo like a homeless person waiting about an hour for the hubby to return. I stopped at the supermarket. When I pulled into the drive I received a call that I left my checkbook at the supermarket. It was close to nine, I was exhausted. I retrieved the checkbook.


I have wasted hours looking for lost things.

Today I came in and a substitute teacher rearranged my desk. I could not find anything. Why do people insist on rearranging my desk. I know it is messy, but I thrive in creative chaos. I hate neatness.

I could not find crap today.

Oh, and Dive, I tried writing, it was crap. I haven't had time to fix it so... The hell with it.

8 comments:

dive said...

Neetzy, cancel everything. Fly to Maui. Lay on a beach and drink cocktails until everything gets better.

neetzy said...

Sounds good Dive.

Except all of my money is going to my daughter's Hawaii trip in November...and her Youth Music Abroad trip the following June...sigh.

I told her to remember me when she becomes a wealthy surgeon.

dive said...

Teach her that sharing is good by taking her place on the Hawai'i trip.

neetzy said...

Haha Dive. She's going with her school band. I guess I could play the ocarina.

dive said...

Or the ukulele, it being Hawai'i.

I can't believe the school band gets a trip to Hawai'i! Scrivens! The furthest our school orchestra ever got was Petit-Couronne - our "twin town" in France - and we had to drive there (including the puke-inducing Channel ferry) at our own cost in our own cars. It took us three days to get down there. When we arrived, the Mayor gave us a speech and we played in their town hall to an audience of about twenty. Then we had to sleep in sleeping bags in the local school hall and drive back home the following morning.
I quit the orchestra a short while later, after a stand-up row with my music teacher in which she accused me (quite rightly) of "wrecking my musical talent playing jungle music". She was jealous that I was earning more than her salary playing in rock bars and clubs after school. Hee hee.
Sheesh! Memories can be so sucky sometimes.

neetzy said...

Great story Dive!

My daughter is blessed with a wonderful, charismatic band director. They were invited to Hawaii based on their performance in San Diego a few years ago. We do not have an "orchestra". No string program, but it is just as well. My daughter's main instrument in flute. She takes viola lessons as well. She was in the countywide Junior Symphony and is trying to make the Youth Symphony. She was invited to the 12 day European tour to Rome,Florence, Tivoli, A town in Switzerland, Germany and Paris. I am going broke but think it will be the experience of a lifetime. (Oh and I briefly tried to play oboe and failed. I took guitar lessons, played in the "jazz band". I was not very good at that either.

dive said...

Yay you for being so musical as well as a fantastic painter, Neetzy!

Ooooh, I love viola! I do hope she sticks with it. Just last night before turning out the light I was listening to my favourite viola piece, Holst's Lyric Movement for Viola and Chamber Orchestra.

Here's an address to type into YouTube if you're not familiar with it.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=im_h3gDwesQ
Utterly beautiful.
Do you think they can extent their European tour to take in Norwich?

Ha! I, too, briefly tried the oboe (for about five minutes). I almost burst my cheeks, Dizzy Gillespie style but couldn't raise so much as a squeak from the cursed thing.
My fervently held belief is that nobody plays the oboe. Oboist's mime whilst somebody under their chair squeezes farts from a rat.
Having said that, I am a huge fan of baroque oboe and of Heinz Holliger in particular. Bach's Double Concerto for Violin and Oboe in D minor is sublime.
Here's a slightly scrappy amateur version I found on YT (my favourite version is by Hans Peter Westermann on DHM):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q2K9JzKz4jI

As for bad jazz guitar, just turn up loud and call it "Free Jazz" and people will love it.

neetzy said...

Thanks for the wonderful viola piece Dive! I loved it. Delaney needs to hear more of these! Nice to see viola as "first fiddle" for a change!