The Birthday Blog!!

New most played song on iTunes: “Get Better”, Mates of State.

This album came out early this year, and I’ve only recently been really delving into the band. I have a habit of not necessarily loving something when it’s new, just because it’s new, but because it finally catches me. And well, they have. This song is a nice personal anthem.

Anyway. Last Monday was my birthday, and when I was getting ready that morning, I thought of the little ceramic Dr. Seuss figure my mother gave me I think on my 16^th birthday. Its base is a cloud, and the figure stands atop a spring, carrying a cake. It has a very Seussian face, although I don’t know exactly to what book it belongs. Printed on the cloud base are the verses, “Today is your birthday! Today you are you!” I thought of those lines in a sing-song voice while bounce-walking into the bathroom.

My last two birthdays have been okay. Last year for the big 25, we had a small party in the old apartment, and several friends came to visit and play Apples to Apples. It was a no-big-deal sort of party, except for the presence of Whole Foods brand guacamole, which of course was a hit. My significant other at the time gave me a vinyl copy of Erik Satie’s Vexations, which for the lesser musically knowledgeable is a piece comprised of a musical line repeated 840 times. Someone in my undergrad years once postulated that Ravel’s “Bolero” was the birth of minimalism. I laughed in his face. Anyway. It as a run-of-the-mill birthday, even for my quarter century.

Anyway. My 24^th birthday was actually really wonderful, and not for the reasons one might anticipate. I was preparing to be graduating a semester late from an already super-extended program, I was taking 15 hours including a graduate class, going to the school where I should have been interning at least once a week, working with a powerhouse high school marching band, and also working 40 hours a week as a box office wench at a local dinner theatre. And had just gotten my first car and was making up for time lost in commutes. I was miserable and didn’t have a day off for nearly two months – the first one off was my birthday. All I had was French class that morning at UCF, and then the rest of the day was spent with my mom eating lunch, seeing The Departed in theatres with her and the aforementioned Satie vinyl-purchasing ex, followed by getting my hair cut (at least a foot off at that point), dinner at the Mellow Mushroom with Marc and Nicole, and a get-together that included board games and Guitar Hero at the house I was house-sitting at that evening. It wasn’t the most spectacular or amazing birthday ever, but considering all of the madness that had been occurring in my life up until that point that fall – did I forget to mention I was writing/editing my undergrad thesis at that point, which ended up being over 100 pages? – it was the most wonderful day I could have imagined. It was a perfect respite.

I can’t really recall any other recent birthdays that have stuck out aside from the 24^th. My 19^th involved a college football game and of course, halftime performance, and the first party I stayed overnight at since the days of slumber parties as a pre-teen. My 21^st was spent writing a paper, going to a band sorority event, and recovering from a marching band trip over most of the Midwest the weekend before. My 22^nd was the night of the final 2004 presidential debate.

I love my birthday of course – who doesn’t!? I also share a birthday with Margaret Thatcher and Paul Simon, as well as Chris Carter and Fox Mulder. There were many pre-teen years spent watching the X-Files, with the quirky post-credit graphic for 1013 productions, voiced over by a child stating, “I made this!” I used to want to start a 1013 reed-making company, if I ever really got crackin’ on making bassoon reeds. Every time I looked down at one in college, I’d say, “I made this!” and feel slightly better about myself. My eighteenth birthday was on a Friday the 13^th, the only one of the year 2000 – my friend Michelle took me to Busch Gardens, I had a party with all of my friends the next night where we hung out and berated the Miss America pagent, and I also got to publish an article about my nifty birth date in the teen section of the Orlando Sentinel that I used to write for.

But what I’m finding is that my birthday is growing to be more the way my life goes. I used to look for the most fabulous things in life, not necessarily the most expensive, or most impressive even, but some of the most far out and/or amazing things. I used to want my life to be full gear, crazy mad good times and running on all cylinders at all times. I used to want for the most fantastical things in my life, never really expecting I would get them I guess.

This birthday actually turned out to be pretty swell. I manipulated my kids into behaving, telling them that the nicest birthday present they could get me was to be good in class…heh heh heh. Then Andrew came over, I opened presents, which were wonderful, and we met up with Elizabeth and Marcos, sojourning to Sushi Blues in downtown Hollywood. We ate a gross ton of sushi, veggie and otherwise, and I was really exhausted from friends visiting that weekend so after one shot of sake, I was done. The pictures prove it. We had gelato at my absolute favorite gelato place in the entire world, and then went home and passed out. Twas a good night, and my birthday was the only non-14-15 hour day I had in the subsequent week.

As I get older though, I find that the simpler things and taking time to spend with great friends, as I did this weekend, is so much more satisfying than seeking to have a party say, at Pure nightclub in Las Vegas with Paris Hilton. I don’t need to go crazy places. I am easily satisfied. Ethnic food and gelato in downtown Hollywood will certainly do. As an example, I don’t need to go on random wild trips for New Year’s, either. I strongly prefer my New Year’s Eves to be spent with friends, in someone’s house, playing board games and listening to records & watching movies. I still want great things in my life, but I look for them these days in different venues.

Pictures will come. Eventually. :)

knowledge of the after-life? or, something.

“My God is subtle and great

She can’t be wounded

By the gossip and the hate

Of the frightened

Who put their heads in the sand…”

Last week on Fresh Air, the founder and editor of beliefnet was responding a bit to Bill Maher’s soon-coming docu-drama about Religious Fantatics, said editor-guy was trying to counter the idea that all religious and spiritual people are crazy with the fact that for every time religious identity and belief has done harm to society as a whole, there is at least one time where religion has done right by civilization.

And to be honest with you? For most of my life, religion has done me well. I grew up Catholic – I didn’t have anything forced on me, except my mom encouraging me to go to CCD even when I didn’t want to. It was the same sort of minor coaxing that got me to stay in band in the 7^th grade, and we see where that has gone. I grew very attached to the church in my adolescence, and while I wouldn’t say it was a defining aspect of my life, unlike music was, it worked hand in hand with what I loved. I got to play music at my childhood church for five years, direct ensembles, and play lots of solos. I played four masses in two days on Christmas in 2000.

More so than that, somehow I learned what seemed to matter in church. When I was in 1^st grade, and other kids made fun of me, I would mumble something about Jesus loving everyone. I never got the hypocrisy part of it. I learned that while much of the establishment doesn’t like homosexuals, we still love them. I learned that when you do good, the left hand doesn’t let the right hand know what it’s doing. I learned that the tax collectors get punished and the poor will find glory.

To me, that seems like a pretty typical liberal agenda. It constantly astounds me how the right-wing hijacked religion. I guess the same way that men who sought power have always done. I am always reminded of John Kerry’s words during a 2004 presidential debate – regardless of what else he said or did, he gained my respect throughout the campaign: “My faith guides me as well. It teaches me to give to the poor, to care for the planet…”

A good friend of mine who is an atheist said to me, while we were waiting in a long line at the tax collector’s office, that she wasn’t an “evangelical atheist.” I like that term. And I can’t stand listening to Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens. Not because I disagree with them so badly, but because they exactly enact the things they hate about the faithful. They spew harsh language and hate, and it makes me crazy.

For the Fresh Air episode, I caught the very end of Terri Gross’s interview with Bill Maher, when he spoke about the New Testament, and how revolutionary it was. The meek inheriting the earth, the sad and pathetic being deserving of respect, all creatures of the earth being deserving of kindness. The latter is a statement I feel very strongly about after Andrew’s and my adventure this weekend with a small, pathetic kitty who could not help itself. Maher went on to say that this message isn’t one that’s gone out of style, and he wishes that could be expressed more than the hypocrisy of Christianity. I don’t know if I will end up seeing Religilous – I’m at the point in my life where poking fun at organized religion doesn’t bother me – but it was nice to hear him say something not so scathing about the church.

Role Reversal

I tell my students the strangest things sometimes.

Like when I was setting up stuff in my bandroom this summer, I had been looking at old myspace pictures of my friend Jackson, and parties he used to attend at the apartment where I used to live. We had us some good times. One had a caption that said, "Destroy all humans." I thought it was funny.

So I wrote it on a magnetic white board in my office.

This was like July.

Several of my students have seen it since - I haven't erased it. I tell them a robot wrote it. And that I can't erase it or the robot will break all of my remaining clarinet reeds. A disaster of epic proportions to be sure.

Anyway. Suffice to say I tell them some crazy things.

The craziest and most apt being that my profession is music, and my hobby is writing. For most people, I think, that is a reversal of reality. Most people's jobs have much more to do with writing things than playing music. Being a working musician, or for some even a respected music teacher is a pipe dream. Writing something somewhere isn't uncommon. Let's face it - universities give out a LOT more English degrees than they do music degrees. Not to belittle it - some of the smartest people I've ever met have English degrees. So do some of the less smart people I've ever met.

Point being - me and my hobbies. Music is a hobby to most people. And I know writers. I know really great writers. If you were to gather the circle of people closest to me, at least half of them would be writers, like serious writers. I dated a journalist for four years. People who write have other hobbies, sure, but they are obsessive. They are consumed by their craft. They write and write and write and re-write. A creative writing teacher (and published/well-received author) I had at UCF told us, "Writing is re-writing. Those who make it are those who stick with it." She quoted it from someone else but it stuck with me.

I love to write. I have always loved to write. Ever since I was a little girl. Whatever school I was a part of, there was always some writing award waiting there for me. Not to say that I'm the greatest writer who ever lived - um, no - but I had a knack for it. Being around other great writers has been great because it's challenged me, given me something to live up to.

Music was always work. I loved music more than anything else, but it was always work. It was always FUN work though, and something I could prove to myself. It was always about having definitive goals and reaching them. About performing in the moment, and letting that moment live on. Writers do that less often. Something about a manuscript can always be edited, always be improved. Maybe the Beats didn't believe that, but maybe Kerouac could have used a few more commas.

The thing is that now I teach and talk about music for a living. I've always worked toward it, since age 17 when I definitively decided on music over writing as my path. The writing has always found a way to sneak into my life, with jobs and people and opportunities. And the internet, of course - gotta love to blog! But now I find myself coming home from 13 hour days of work on less than six hours of sleep, and there's just no time for anything else. This is not much of a change from how things were in college. There was just less sleep in college, for a variety of reasons.

I want to keep up with it. I want to have my voice out there, which is primarily why I've piggy-backed on others' projects as a guest writer or contributor. But it seems my profession and having any sort of meaningfuly, satisfying social life do not allow time for a slight fixation that burns in me, but only partially consumes me. I've always known this was a battle within me, the writer and the musician, but now I see it making its presence known more clearly.

And while I've not proven myself to be the most reliable contributor in the past, I know that if I want to be known as a writer, I have to do it for myself. Like I said, though. Not all that different from college. Like in the fall of 2006, taking 15 hours including a graduate class, writing an undergrad thesis, working up to 40 hours a week at a box office, Winter Park HS rehearsals every week and football games, orchestra two nights a week, and desperately trying to finish my piano exam. I'm surprised I made it through all that sorts of crap.

Point being: where do passions overlap? Where can they co-exist? When in the world will I ever have time to do all the things I love, and not live in a really dirty house and pay all my bills on time?