Reveille

The wind zipping through the slats reminded me of that morning several months ago. He had leaned across the back of the bed to grab the pull of the blinds, and his bare back had competed with the sacred sunrise -- shoulders wide as the ocean beyond the horizon, torso strong as ten thousand years of delta, waist narrow as the stream just above the mouth.

Beyond the blinds, the ferns were dancing in the storm. Beyond them creaked a neighbor's trees. It was easy to fall asleep. As the wind picked up, his breathing became more peaceful. Let the walls fall in -- the arms, I knew, would be there in the morning.

I slept. There was beauty, stunning outward beauty of biology: places of sun and shadow, fens and prairies, creases, joints, whole mechanisms of destruction and creation. There was spirit, frightening cosmic spirit of unknown atomics: dark galaxies of uselessness, moons of longing, dusty thoughts combusting at the slightest spark.

My mouth moved, and another's voice spoke: "Leonard." We had not moved in sleep. He was still breathing against my back. His hands were still curled around mine. "Leonard," the voice said again.

His arms were completely still, and the rise and fall of his chest varied only for a name not my own: "Ricky?"

My own voice wanted to speak but could not. My fingers formed an unfamiliar shape within Leonard's hand. A force moved my tongue through the shapes of "Yes." Leonard seemed to condense around me, aligning his own pores with mine. The wind had stilled. We rested still for nights.

When I heard the ferns shuddering, I knew my body was becoming my own. Leonard breathed through an untroubled sleep. My tongue was free but could not repeat those few words. My fingers grasped to retain that foreign sign, but already my hand was curling to its own shape.

It's my party.

Well, all in all I had a nice birthday. I'm pleased to be 32. Thirty-two is flirty, too.

I spent the bulk of the day in intense jury deliberation. I'd love to tell you how it's going, but I'd have to kill you. Maybe next week. After court, I stopped by the library to get in an hour of regular work-work before going to the ballet. It was Giselle, and we all gasped when Maria Kochetkova was inducted into the Wilis and spun out of her veil.

The future, the future: My Anjuska-inspired detox is proceeding according to plan. Now it's time to address the boyfriend problem, the friend problem, and the job problem. Easy-peasy.

P.S. Thank you, Maria, for the beautiful and tasty cookies!

Tchaikovsky and a special guest

The concert Wednesday night was so stunning I barely had enough time to feel sorry for myself. One of life's chiefest glories is to be within a dozen feet of a human who has turned his or her body into a machine of incredible skill and passion.

I sat in the second row directly in front of the Steinway thundering away at the Tchaikovsky first piano concerto. True, from my vantage point I could not see Nikolai Lugansky's fingers do their magical rat-a-tat-tat -- I could only see those magic french fries when he threw them in his lap or to his side to relax and reset his wrists. But I could see the musician's determined face, could note the way his mouth worked at the multiple layers of the music or his cheeks puffed out slightly in time with the orchestra, could watch the slender ankles working at the pedals (with their strange -- but surely intentional -- hesitant and tinny release of the dampers), could very well detect and follow the pianist's quiet breaths.

The concert was obscenely indulgent. Why not give the public exactly what they want? An old rock band playing only its number one hits, none of this new crap: the first piano concerto followed by the Pathétique symphony.

I should mention that all this was mine -- Lugansky, two Tchaiks, the hundred musicians of the orchestra, the return of conductor laureate Herbert Blomstedt, spitting distance of the miraculous prestidigitation in a seat I selected by clicking on a map online -- for $60. Sixty dollars: namely, one dinner date, three DVDs, four books, six decent lunches. Incredible value (and I'll complain about the relative value of the San Francisco Opera some other time).

As I was wandering around on my lonesome paths before the concert (up and down Market Street, through the library in search of books on Mendelssohn, to a bookstore to check their collection of used sheet music, to a sushi bar for what must be my last solo sushi meal), I began to think about going back to school for music. Have I not demonstrated sufficient skill to make a living as a musician? Have I not exhibited sufficient love, AKA stickedness?

I have also seen the improvements in my playing and musical understanding in the sideways time I've spent on it in the last couple years. It's hard to believe now that I once thought a Beethoven piano-violin sonata would be unapproachable. Three years ago, I could never have guessed that I would now be giving three or four chamber music recitals a year or that I would have acquired a real live piano and recorded over two discs of music. (Not to mention learning to play the flute.) How much would be possible if all my energies were put to music?

I sit here wondering what to write next, or how to talk about my reservations. And my head just goes, "No, no, no, no, no! This is preposterous!" You see, I'm grasping at straws of happiness. I'm especially dissatisfied with my job. I've been thinking in terms of whether I'm "aligned with my passions." My work is partly aligned: yes, I do actually enjoy looking for and finding errors. I was more aligned when I was copyediting assorted nonfiction back in Georgia, but that was backbreaking work that barely paid for soup. I was also more aligned when I was accompanying back in Georgia, but it was even more backbreaking and I couldn't afford soup.

Unfortunately, as in other things, I'm also waiting for someone else to tell me what to do. Making one's own decisions is so selfish and arbitrary -- don't you think? -- all the way from "What do you feel like for dinner?" to "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I seek just the right person to tell me what I already believe, and then I justify my actions as following the wise counsel of that other person -- and if my actions fail or have negative consequences, I wouldn't dream of blaming the other person. Because that's not nice, and I recognize that no one can know anything for certain. But if I am the sole decision maker, then there's nothing stopping me from dousing myself in a part-Catholic slick of guilt, shame, self-doubt, and self-hatred and setting myself aflame.

NOW WITH NEW SOBRIETY!
These thoughts brought to you Guinness free!
Tune in every hour on the hour for the news you trust.

P.S. The other thing I want to do is take photographs of everyone on the planet. More proof that humans are painfully beautiful -- follow the links to the profile of the commenter here.

Adventure

One would think, in the face of Deutsche Grammophon's recent DVD release of Ariadne auf Naxos (with Gundula Janowitz, Rene Kollo, Trudeliese Schmidt, and Edita Gruberova), that I'd no longer be able to fuck around with life. But I will. I'll continue wilting under the weight of an ugly job, and I'll continue self-medicating and hiding behind useless activities.

Only 4:50 pm, and it's been an incredible day. I started the morning rewatching Miranda July's Me and You and Everyone We Know, which I had seen several years ago in the theater. As I was watching and rediscovering it, I felt it may very well belong in my top ten. Certainly it would lead in the category of Films Speaking to the Beauty and Inevitability of Human Connection.

After the movie (which I enjoyed with coffee and a ham-and-cheese croissant from Nibs), I spent an hour and a half on Mendelssohn. I made a few forays into the Chopin waltz I had hoped to record. I've managed to memorize the thing through all the repetitions (and its relative simplicity), but it's still too fast and capricious for me to play through without major crashes.

Then, since the sun was out and it was warm enough for short sleeves for the first time in months, I decided to go on an adventure. I blinked my way out of the cave and walked through Golden Gate Park the thirty blocks to the DeYoung museum. Almost two years in this neighborhood and I still had never been. I corrected that by getting a membership (which also lets me into the Legion of Honor, where Madeleine would sit and watch Carlotta) and strolled through the stunning building (filled, alas, with more than a few rooms of boring art). And then up the elevator to the observation tower, which was more beautiful that I had expected.

I moved quickly through the museum since the sun was shining and I could come back anytime. I continued through the park (steering through the happy couples) to Haight and stopped in at Amoeba. I hoped to pick up some cheap CDs, maybe even chance on Strauss's Intermezzo, which I had seen there before. Just for fun I looked at the classical DVD new releases -- where, shiver me timbers, the Ariadne was waiting.

But the muses were not finished with me. I clutched the melancholy heroine to my Busen and strolled down to the regular classical DVD area. Alas, no Rheingold with James Morris, and nothing else I needed to shell out the big bucks for. Wait. What's this? Ah, their little dance section. And who is this? Jacques d'Amboise? Ooh. Expensive. Well, let's see what's on it. BAM. It starts with Apollo, that marvelous little ballet I saw clips of on a Balanchine documentary, could not find evidence of a complete recording of, and managed -- through an insistence on experiencing at least a few important things before I die -- to see live at San Francisco Ballet and New York City Ballet.

These things should be enough. Sure, there's the matter of "Who will I share them with?" A friend told me I was better off without a boyfriend.

ME: Yeah, but to actually love someone -- What's that like?
HER: It's pretty annoying and gets in the way a lot.

Attack!

I watched Golden Girls last night. It was the first episode of the fifth season -- a double episode in which Dorothy has chronic fatigue syndrome. I had several good laughs, but before long my eyes were closing. It had been a long week of courtroom testimony and standardized-test mumbo-jumbo.

I was awakened to a sound of violent knocking. Then I heard a sound like the locked gate to my little yard being opened. I lay still in bed, listening and wondering if I'd truly heard anything. Was I being attacked? I grabbed my phone, crawled out of bed, and crouched against a wall away from the windows. My heart was beating with dangerous adrenaline. I considered grabbing the knife I'd used to cut my pizza earlier, and I wondered, still dazed from sleep, whether I ought not acquire some longer ranger weapon.

Ah, was this a friend? Only seconds had passed since the supposed sound, but I opened my phone. A missed text. "Hey mccutie! Just wanted to give u a good night kiss. :* cant help it. Sleep well...." Not my late-night visitor; just my ex-pseudo-boyfriend who seems to like me a whole lot even though he's Bloomingdales and I'm Sears and I'm a serial monogamist and he's a professional bachelor still in love with his widower. A cheery text giving me a little strength and calming my heart just a little.

I typed in 9-1-1 and crouched there, waiting for the person who broke into my backyard to make the next move.

Several minutes passed. I considered facing my fear, opening the front door. Was I prepared to defend my cave? Was I ready to die? I waited, waited. I was so tired. I considered lying down on the floor of the kitchen -- bullets would have to go through the bathroom wall or the kitchen island before hitting my body.

Who was I kidding? This was not TV, and this was not court. This was a half-asleep weakling with dream-inspired imagination. My heart still beating, but feeling safe again, I crawled back into bed.

A quick look out the door a little after seven this morning showed no evidence of murderers or vampires.

The ballet

I went to the ballet the other night and sat a seat away from a young woman who began chatting me up.

"Do you have a favorite performer?" she asks.

"Oh, no, not really. I don't know these dancers very well," I reply.

A few seconds later: "Do you dance?" she asks.

"Oh, no. No," I reply. Then, feeling I've been too uncommunicative (and not yet sufficiently strange): "I do music. Not dance. Play piano."

"Oh!" She pauses. A man comes and sits in the empty seat between us.

Eventually she draws me out of the program I've been perusing: "So how did you come to be interested in ballet?"

I attempt to answer, and before long she's managed to ask how I come to be attending the ballet alone.