everyday observations

Burrs

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I have enough shirts. There’s one deep dresser drawer, two closet shelves, a plastic bedside cubby, and various hung items. But I adore wearing new ones. Things just get old fast in my world. I need variety and unpredictability. But there are two problems: no room and no money. The room part would be solved if I did what I feel like doing, which is to get rid of anything less than a couple of months old. But these are perfectly good items. They only suffer from familiarity.
Some things improve with age. Appreciation of life’s many shades is enriched given time’s passing. Instruments become shaded and nuanced. Things of true beauty perhaps all improve, though there may be a breaking point where either enough is enough or decay sets in. I don’t consciously think about such issues, but I suppose I do make choices based on them. While I may think I’m going with my natural gut feeling about something, I could just be having some sort of knee-jerk, weirdly premeditated response to whether I perceive something as fresh and new and fun, or used and cliche and boring. It might only seem natural on the surface. Maybe that explains my new diet of the month, for instance, the Skinny Bitch. Is it great because it makes me feel better (both physically and ethically) or because it makes me feel different? This adoration of novelty is only part of how I make my choices, I know. I am (hopefully) using a complex assortment of drives, adding up to a given course of action. Unfortunately I err on the side of wishy-washy quite a bit, especially when no one guides me. I do better with a bit of nudging. I wish I liked being nudged…. It’s okay sometimes.

originally published on 10/18/07

cello practice

The Nile

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I now realize what a friend at IU was talking about. Sitting on the floor in one of the hallways he described a fingernail/cello quandary he was having. At the time I was still an avid biter, so I couldn’t see how normal length nails would undermine his playing. Now that I actually use clippers instead of teeth, I am running into the same difficulty. Don’t the left hands’ nails get in the way? I never limited my biting exuberance particularly in the days when I bit, but now I find a maximum shortness for comfort during clipping.
What seems to be the case is that there must be an tenuous alliance between the nail and the string. It primarily involves the first and second fingers. I haven’t worked out exactly which positions are affected. There does appear to be a further issue of extensions, which changes the angle of the finger and thereby the placement of the fingertip and nail.

Does vibrato work with the nail? Is there a limited dynamic range? Am I degrading the string with frequent scratchings back and forth when shifting? Is the scratching audible to anyone but me?

This issue came up at IU in particular because Starker tends to make adjustments to the angle of his students’ left arms and hands. He is looking for consistency all along the fingerboard which should aid in consistency of intonation. He is brilliant at finding overarching structural and musical truths which apply anywhere on the cello and within any piece of music. Personally I felt a lot less lost after my work with him, making practicing a much more efficient and productive proposition. I think now I am discovering that I will naturally replace some of the encyclopedic rulebook which colleagues and I imagined he kept somewhere (besides his brain), with a few short chapters that are more deeply me. But I could never have come to this place of trust in myself without his anchoring to spring from.

originally published on 10/27/07

hypotheses and philosophies

Lionizer

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I’m reviewing my library in search of answers. I have seen my emotional roller-coastery self of late. I feel I am in a good place to pull back and reflect. I must feel a certain stability right now, as though I’ve been through something dangerously wonderful, or wonderfully dangerous, and lived to tell the tale. Also I’ve been practicing pretty regularly, which has a grounding effect. I am still a walking advertisement for neuroses, but somehow I’m just that much more composed.
So I have reconsidered the possible sources of who I am and why I do things. I have come back to something called borderline personality disorder. In reading my books on it, I would have to say I am borderline borderline. The reason it is called borderline if I understand correctly, is because it didn’t quite fall into any readily identifiable psychiatric categories at the time the name was coined in the 1930’s. It borrowed symptoms from various illnesses and seemingly arbitrarily glommed them together, based on the patients observed. Nowadays it is an established disorder. I myself only have a portion of the symptoms, which is why I say borderline borderline. I also feel like the name borderline aptly describes my feelings in life generally, kind if like I’m in a no-man’s land between normal, functional, real-life society and a weirder place of my own making full of dreams and emotions of both wondrous and frightful nature. I am straddling the two almost all the time. It is rather frustrating because I feel I cannot commit to anything 100%. I only know how to exist on that borderline.

I think that is why I spend much of my time not being particularly productive. Non-action is the best means I can come up with to guard against falling off this fence. I guess I feel either choice is going to be a disappointment. Any choice, really. Of course I do have to make choices sometimes, but I try to keep them to a minimum.

The choices I make are usually fine. And the dreams and fantasies I muse upon are generally of a reasonably pleasant or useful sort. The trouble is this dang-blasted split between the two, frequently leaving me in limbo, a dead heat of indecision. Thankfully I have found that writing helps bridge the gap.

originally published on 11/17/07

everyday observations

Glamour

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I have noticed that when I cheat on my diet, I cheat again shortly thereafter. I have two theories to explain this. The nice theory and the nasty theory.
I could be feeling like, “Well, I survived this misstep okay. Who’s to say I won’t be fine if I did it again? Surviving it only proves that I am fine with it. I am more powerful than a silly milkshake, right? Maybe it’s even a step in the right direction. Who really knows? It’s good for the soul. I’ll just go ahead and have some more of that icky thing and pretend it’s only the first infraction. Every time is the first time. I am untouchable, unflinchable, indestructable. There is no cumulative effect, because I am not an organic being. I am a robotic superbeing. I just need to change my oil, buy some spare parts, polish up my brass coating. I can simply upgrade.”

Or there’s the underbelly version. “I slipped. It was inevitable. Did I really think I could exercise enough self-control to resist that? I’m a hopeless case. I may as well do it again, right? Now that I’ve started, I’ve proven beyond a shadow of a doubt my weakness of character. I only feel that rush of good feelings when I am validating my self-hatred. So go ahead and succumb 100%, why don’t you? Live it up. Then die it up. Who’ll really notice?”

originally published on 1/18/08

everyday observations

Bilateral

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I am splitting my reading time between two books – a mystery and an anti-sugar tome. I love the contrast. Each one seems to feed different parts of my brain. Following the unfolding of the elements of the mystery taps my concentration and steadfastness. It’s soothing and meditative. The dietary book piques my curiosity and raw emotion – it is unrelated to the elapsing of time. It forces me to reflect on my preconceptions and everyday actions, comparing them to the new information put forth page after page. I can absorb it a little at a time, like a snowball building up inside my food consciousness, until I am armed with to-do and not-to-do lists in that realm.
But the mystery part of my brain quietly ruminates over the plot and characters all the time. I have formed a subconscious bond with the aura and storyline of the book. There is nothing like that with the anti-sugar one. Once I put it down, it goes its separate way, as much as a book can go anywhere. It is a practical experience.

originally published on 2/1/08

reflections within

Bigg

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I have made a list of things which I would like to trace back to their familial roots. I have been continuing to journal about finding my place in the puzzle which is my family of origin. Here are the categories I would like to investigate:
Money, Food, Exercise, Work Ethic, Sleep, The Arts, Emotional Expression, Religion, Rebellion.

These would certainly be a good start. I can tell already that comparing my feelings to those of other family members will uncover many sources of my tendencies. I can take almost any topic, really, and trace it back to its roots in past generations. I can also take another family member’s personality quirks and attempt to do the same. It seems to be a deep wellspring in the pursuit of self-knowledge.

originally published on 2/27/08

reflections within

Bintle

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I’m sorry that it’s less natural for me to write about happy moments I have. You may get the idea that I am miserable non-stop. I actually am fairly shy about my happier feelings. I think I want to protect them from being obliterated by those who would hurt me or mock them. It’s safer to divulge the pain than the pleasure, so it seems. But I just had a happy phone conversation where I expressed feelings of affection and bondedness. I thought you should know.

originally published on 7/9/08

everyday observations

Peel

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Those who may befriend you will simply mirror your level of openness. They will quite aptly sense your propensities and determine from that whether to approach you. I probably don’t give people enough credit for being sensitive to the internal give and take in this world. Signals are constantly being passed around. But they are primarily not conscious.
I ought not bemoan a lack of friends or a lack of fun repartee in chance meetings during daily activities and errands. There is no reason to expect others to be more open with me than I am with them. Or differently open in ways I may yearn for. They do as they see and feel.

originally published on 7/14/08

hypotheses and philosophies

Blanche

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I realize that I have evidence of my recent assumption about the mirroring of those around me. I have friends who seem rather adept in social situations. But when we have discussed their comfort level socially, they tend to say the same thing I say, which is that they are uncomfortable and insecure. This is one reason why we are friends, because we are coming from the same place. And eventually we find our lives have many of the same properties, despite all the superficial differences.
Therefore I can see that, like it or not, seemingly or not, you draw your own ilk to you.

originally published on 7/15/08

cello practice, hypotheses and philosophies

Cheerily

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I sit in orchestra and watch people. Or observe is a better word, due to my feeling of non-belonging. I see all sorts of bizarre movements and expressions that are solely a result of an individual’s idiosyncrasies. They are unrelated to the essence of the music being played. They are their egos. That is actually fine if they prefer to do things that way. My dilemma is that I cannot seem to get away with even the slightest departure from total discipline in body and mind without everything unraveling at the seams. All these other people appear to be humming along perfectly contentedly. And I have in fact asked people or alluded to the possibility that they are suffering from any of my same physical or mental symptomology, and almost always it is not the case. This is one reason why I have spent much time trying to look for answers to my cellistic issues outside the musical realm – I keep hitting a brick wall when I address it directly.
One other aspect to this is the question of whether others are striving for the same kinds of things I aspire to. If generally they are not, then it may be perfectly logical that they have none of the same problems I do. I assume people are on my page. I strongly wish that they are. It’s painful for me to even write that there’s a possibility that they aren’t. I despise being different, separate, and in the end isolated. I cannot believe the way people take all these human differences and/or commonalities in stride. I freeze up when I become aware of these things. And I freeze up if I try not to be aware. Maybe the only thing I can attempt to do is take my inability to take things in stride, in stride. That’s only once removed from other people, right? Not too bad.

originally published on 9/3/08