Okay I tried to say phasing three times and it came up freezing so I guess the title of this particular month's going to be not what I thought it was.

Interesting: I actually am freezing. Gonna go down to the microwave and put in the bed buddy so I can be toasty sitting up dictating late in my darkened room.

It's Saturday night and somebody is out in the street having a very loud conversation. Can't tell whether they're arguing although I would say it's probably my next door neighbors and they're not known to be party animals even with the in-house teenagers.

Now it's gone quiet. Don't know what that was.

I've spent all day today re-learning—you know why they call it steep learning curve. I just got upgraded to Windows 10 and of course that was because I was receiving error messages and I wasn't going to have any support after certain date and then I started getting blue screen of death three times in one day. That's not good. Even I know that.

I complain and lickety split I get a link to a box computer which I guess this is what they call not laptop not tablet. Yerg. But it does mean a lot more space on my desk to spread out. Nice.

Of course I didn't implement any of this except the buying. The rest was strictly through the auspices of my oldest who never met a device he didn't love to fiddle with & configure. Excellent service up to a point.

Now I am stuck in all this foreign territory including not being able to find my old files, or gazing stupidly at a strange desktop.  Wondering if raising the window shade is better than turning on the light. Rearranging numerous binders to accommodate new work.

I did manage to get some tasks done. So much music to learn. Desultory attempt to decide whether I even want to bother making some audition sound files, in case I did want to do a micro solo. I don't know, probably not. Nothing is really exciting me.

I think I'm actually kind of sad. Our director's finally getting off his...procrastination, and retiring in June which he had been threatening to do for quite a while. He has devised a lovely program as a send-off sort of biographical thing, sorta sweet and sentimental. It'll be fun. Cheap thrills. It has four acts as it were, with a story arc.

My place in the group is solid, however the extraneous volunteer opportunities aren't my bag. Not just physically—I still can't really lift anything substantial, nor should I—but also temperamentally.

Reminds me of a director who pounced on me just before opening and volunteered me to warm the cast up since he saw in my resume that I had trained in ballet. I declined. It wasn't, as it turned out, an appropriate request since the guy playing my husband was a true jackass. My character seriously did not need to confabulate with his.

Then there's the other guy (why is it always guys?) who came back into the dressing room before curtain and said I needed to come do vocal warm-ups with everybody. I demurred because at that point I was pretty full of myself having graduated with a degree in Vocal Performance. If I hadn't loathed the guy, I probably would have done as he asked. I was totally being contrarian. But he was totally being a dick.

Now that I think about it, it's not always guys who are dicks. Last choir retreat we worked our little butts off and then in order to be good colleagues (and form a quorum) we stuck around for the official meeting with the board yawn and of course right at the end wouldn't you know, somebody insisted on opening up an old wound. Not on the agenda and yet we spent another half hour getting everybody all upset. Again.

The wound involved yet another clueless person, this time female. 'Nuff said.

[insert anecdote here]

Well I've been dictating away. I've been trying to work this in and I haven't had an opening.

I should just grab it.

I'm officially an orphan.

All these years of writing, I've been complaining nattering gossiping extemporizing about my crazy French mother and now she's gone.

I'm neck-deep in her clobber, everywhere I look a little tchotchke or a piece of fabric or a pillow. I've got furniture crannies I didn't know I had to put a little old bookcase, or here's something! She called it The Octopus: a tiny little four-legged cabinet; stands about 3 ft tall, with awkward spindly legs.

When I was tiny I would sit on the floor and she would take out the jewelry that was stored there and let me hold it if I was careful. I fell in love with some Jade that had been crafted into a necklace—she later removed some links to make earrings
to match. It was at that point when she began letting me know, because I was the only daughter, that these things would eventually become mine.

Precious she called them.

I'm up to my chin in earrings and necklaces and rings. I had to get a couple of little carousel thingies and another over-the-door gizmo to put them all in this insane desire to display them.

Somewhere in the middle of unpacking a whole bunch of stuff I found a little plastic box that is supposed to hold dentures—pretty sure it never got used for that—but when I opened it up I found to my amazement that it had all the accessories she had been wearing when she died. 4 rings and her watch. I think she would have been horrified by the denture-jewelry connection.

Yeah, she would have said not that box!

I've been wearing the Rings. They fit perfectly which is weird because she always said that she was the one with peasant hands with stubby fingers and my hands are slim but they're not so much anymore. I know I have talked about that before I know I have because it was such a recurring theme this whole business a comparison between the two of us: stubby/slim  heart/head  short/tall  spiritual/intellectual  warm/cool  

But then, she weighed less than me....she was starving herself. Pushing it away. No longer interested.

slash slash triangle    slash slash triangle    slash slash triangle   slash slash triangle

what you get when you're in 7/4        

what does that mean? too intellectual.