suriak

Me n' Bartok are like peas & carrots this week.

Today I'm forcing myself to have a happy, productive day... ok, well it's not forced - but I did a little coaxing with myself. Last night was a great intro to my week - I spent an hour free-writing for a gender-bias-free zine at the Neighborhood Story Project. It's going to be an every-week kinda thing, and although it's certainly not supposed to be any kind of therapy - I think it'll good to keep the topic of kink linked into my article (ok so all of us writing for it are somewhat if not outright kinky anyway) - it'll keep my thoughts in check.

I've got the next four days planned up to the 15-minute increment in a way that I can pull my iPhone out and change things if necessary, and add to it if necessary. My goals this week are to do two ten minute segments of deep breathing per day, drink 8 glasses of water per day, and stick to my schedule as much as humanly possible. I realized that the past few weeks, one of the reasons why I have, in effect, lost my marbles, is that I have refused to stick to my schedule or even create one. People keep telling me I'm nuts for planning things down to the minute like I do, and my therapist tells me its reinforcing my anxiety - which I get.. so I just havent done it.. well - look where that got me. It was like withdrawing from crack.

So last night I had a dream that I left a rack of music stands on the third floor of the performing arts center and got a screaming phone call this morning... so of course I came in early to check on the stands, and they are all in their homes - safe and sound ... not just chilling in the middle of the hallway. Deep breath.

I'm so glad I have an outlet for creative writing again. I'm glad I will have a semi-sane week and get back on track.

My professor is in surgery (again) as we speak. This month/semester is definitely a test to see if I can handle this degree or not. I should be able to do this... I should.

Meanwhile, my baby and I had a lovely weekend together. There was a few lovely shared meals, a parade, some cocktails at a dyke bar, a Grrlspot, a friend from MS who came into town and spent Saturday with us, passionate fucking on the living room floor, some work done by both of us, some quality puppy time spent, and some free-writing together...there were several silent "I love you" moments, between us... and those always make any moment perfect.

I apologize if I've seemed unzipped lately... I have been. I'm trying to ravel myself back up again without doing it as tight as before. I'm trying to break things and people up into 'value' and 'valueless', and throughout it all, I have Debussy's Voiles (II) prelude from Book I in my head...

Next time, just dont ask me if you're going to complain about it... because I refuse to smile, nod, and say "Oh I think that's a great idea", which is the only thing you were prepared to hear.

Well at this point I'm having rolling physical anxiety leading to panic attacks pretty much every day and every moment I'm awake. I've had a couple of crazy 'scares' this week, but I'm managing it. I've never in my life had anxiety this bad, or knew that it ever could be. Again - working on it. I'm actually having anxiety about the anxiety ... so needless to say, I'm feeling pretty messed up.

In other news, the grandmother and sister are still in the hospital on opposite ends of the country. Mother's an evil lush, other sister's mid-divorce, wife is working 80 hours per week, I've got a ten page paper due in 4 hours that I havent started yet, a Mahler analysis due in an hour that I havent started yet, two teachers calling in already for this Saturday, one shop co-worker in the hospital while my boss is in NYC, car still in the impound, a stolen debit card, a sinus infection, a faculty member pissed at me that I told her to fuck off in front of 20 people the other day, a major professor in the hospital (so I took over all his classes for the next 3 weeks at least) having spinal surgery, 5 new major pieces to conduct in less than a month, a 15 year old nephew doing his best to get his 15 yr old girlfriend pregnant...oh and I'm getting STD/AIDS tested and glucose tested today at 3:30...

...and meanwhile there was a munch last night that went well except I got completely ignored by someone and drank myself into a hole.

And lastly - it's time to make my to-do list for the next 15 hours.

So - tonight I video-recorded myself performing in rehearsal. When I got home, I watched the video. I had to do a double-take several times to make sure my eyes weren't playing tricks on me. It just didn't look like me. My skin was yellowish-gray and puffy, I had dark circles under my eyes which seemed almost sunken in, and my body language was just so unlike how I picture myself. I felt like I looked like what I would picture my fat twin brother to look like, if I had one. Quite frankly, I look terrible. Time to fix me...

therapy at 9am - phew.

so - tomorrow -

jog/dogs/home/shower/dress/drive/practice horn:etude:tech:vibrato:SMP:bassoon sonata:handel /JW Marriott w/ Marsalis folks & NOJO:retreat: Irvin: discussing initiatives:creating agenda: reviewing SMS: reviewing Putamayo: reviewing "Searching for Satch": reviewing Elysian Fields commission: reviewing guest artist lineup: reviewing the Playhouse lineup/meeting w/ stage krewe: initial acoustic training for newbies/ office: SMS handbook - contents outline: lanyards:corkboard: mediating departmental argument/euphonium lesson/Zine lunch meeting to firm up new sponsor/therapy/quintet rehearsal/ conducting wind ensemble/ apple appointment for new iPhone/symphony rehearsal/home: dogs:paper outline on colonial puritanism-music ed/cleaning:15 min per room/dinner/licking wife's cunt until I fall asleep...

Sleepy.therapy tomorrow @ 1. Meeting w/ vocal insructor. Meeting with piano instructor. Meeting with potential new trumpet instructor. Firming up quintet. 8am. Morning. Puppies taking up the whole damn bed. ZZzzZzz.hands hurt to type. Kalachakra. Need to clean my house. When? Need to get tested. Penguin’s gallbladder. Glade apple-crisp candle. Broken iPhone. Noisy ceiling fan. Back hurts today. Prayer Flags scrunched up on my bedroom mantle like used tissues. Puppy Playtime. Trying to fill up two hours of potential productivity. Poof.

my mother asked me what i was up to these days. below is what I sent her. the thing is, writing it all down makes me realize that there are big chunks of time i have free, so i shouldnt complain about not having time to study or chill w/ my girly...



Things that are TBA include weekly (varied evenings) recording studio projects, concerts & performances (both performing, recording, and/or setting lights for), LPO rehearsals/performances, & other events.

Mondays:

12am-7am - sleep
7-7:30 - shower, dress, leave
8:00-9:45 - practice
10:00-11:15 - teaching physics of music
11:30-11:55 - lunch w/ Jen & Gender Beat zine board meeting
12:00-1:30 euphonium lesson
1:30-2:30 - therapy
2:30-3pm - office 1/2 hr ( (i.e. press conferences, meetings, creating presentations, talking with kids parents, handling people whose personal assistants have personal assistants, mediating, iPod meetings with huge-name artists, instructor and undergraduate meetings, website creation, meeting with city people, working on brass competition project, saturday music school project, putomayo project, institute newsletter), etc. )
3pm-4pm - tuba-euphonium ensemble
4-6pm - conducting/performing wind ensemble
6-7pm - driving uptown
7pm-8pm - wind symphony rehearsal
8pm-10pm - british brass band rehearsal
...driving home
10:30ish - dinner w/ kd
12am-2am - home office hours - i.e. answering work emails, creating spreadsheets and handouts for students

Tuesdays & Thursdays:

3am-6am - sleep
6-6:45am - run with dogs, shower, dress, drive
7am -9am - practice my horn - right now im preparing solo pieces for my PhD interview next month in seattle
9-11am - office (i.e. press conferences, meetings, creating presentations, talking with kids parents, handling people whose personal assistants have personal assistants, mediating, iPod meetings with huge-name artists, instructor and undergraduate meetings, website creation, meeting with city people, working on brass competition project, saturday music school project, putomayo project, institute newsletter), etc.
11-12:15 - sitting in a room analyzing the song cycles of Gustav Mahler - which means I sit there and stare at scores whiz by and text people to finish up whatever work I didnt get finished in previous hours and to set up new meetings and conferences.
12:15-12:45 - lunch with colleagues where we sit and eat tuna sandwiches for $10 a piece and compare notes for class
1:00-1:25 - reading for 1:30 class - which means I sit in a room shaped like a box that contains a piano and a bench, with the book on the stand, turn off my phone, and read about the history of musical pedagogical practice so i can say something intelligent in class
1:30 -2:45 - seminar in history of musical pedagogy - i.e. we've thus covered 1700 years (globally) in the past 4 weeks
2:45-3 -weekly meeting with a professor
3-4pm - private conducting lesson - right now i'm learning several percy grainger scores, and in two weeks i have to conduct two of his pieces in front of 500 people including all of my friends and professors. then the day after that concert, i am in charge of directing an 80 piece university ensemble for four weeks while my professor is out for back surgery.
4pm-6pm - office hours. see tasks previously listed.
6pm -7pm- directing and performing in the low-brass ensemble
7pm-10pm - conducting and performing in the NOCB (tuesdays), or in wind ensemble (thursdays)
10-11 - dinner w/ kd
11:30-2:30am - home w/ dogs, cleaning, time with kd, class readings, practicing, score study, work emails, shower, running with dogs

wednesday

12am-7am - sleep in bed with wife and two 75 lb dogs
7-7:30 - shower, dress, leave
8:00-9:45 - practice
10:00-11:00 - teaching physics of music
11-12:00 stage manager meeting
12-7pm - office hours ( (i.e. press conferences, meetings, creating presentations, talking with kids parents, handling people whose personal assistants have personal assistants, mediating, iPod meetings with huge-name artists, instructor and undergraduate meetings, website creation, meeting with city people, working on brass competition project, saturday music school project, putomayo project, institute newsletter), etc. )
...home by 8 usually. ..grocery & bath night.


fridays & sundays

7:30am - wake
8-10am - home office hours
10:15 - walk to work
11-7pm - work @ retail job
7:15 - grab cocktail on the way home
8pm-2amish - prepare for next day
(Sundays - 8pm @ neighborhood story project freewriting w/ group for queer zine)

Saturdays

5am - wake
6am-3pm - director of programs at a community music school, where I am in charge of 6 paid instructors, 12 music education undergraduates, 45 students age 8-16, all of their scheduling... teaching private trombone/trumpet/piano lessons, creating the curriculum, handling performances, guest artists, and press.

"You don't have a soul. You are a soul. You have a body." - C. S. Lewis

As a really bad Buddhist, I’m always thinking about suffering. For those who attempt to end their lives, do they consider the domino effect of suffering that would occur as a result of it? The suffering that would take place? I think that somehow people have a romantic fascination with it and sometimes even being around it, having experienced it in your network of friends/family, etc doesn’t cure it always. Most of the time, people end up killing themselves without actually physically dying – escapism? Moving? Running? I don’t know... I’m feeling very compassionate, very curious, very culpable.

...staff meeting – more later.

It's hard to live in my body when I hate it and have frequent moments where I want to tear parts off.
Just a thought.

I'm really upset tonight. Something went down today at work (nothing I did) that's going to cause my supervisors to cut the biggest project I've been working on the minute they hear about it...at the expense of the 30 kids who are already involved, the 20 undergraduates I've made promises of field experience to, and the partnerships I've made with local arts organizations and university faculty members. More later... I just have a hunch. Sigh.

I’m sitting here staring at a lake from a giant third floor window and feeling like each atom whizzing by is a bit of my to-do list or part of an emotion or stressor I’m holding on to, and I need to let go of some of it for now.

The women in my life are a great source of joy for me. They help me relax some of the time, but often I feel so emotionally overwhelmed by external things and they become a source of stress – which is the complete opposite of what they are (in reality), and what they deserve from me. I’ve been giving back almost nothing and I don’t see the end of the tunnel peeking out until December at least – so there are things I need and I can’t/won’t ask for because I just can’t give anyone enough energy right now. In return, I feel like bits of several of my relationships are sloughing off like glaciers in dark waters and I don’t know if I can find those bits again. I’m grateful and lucky to have so many amazing women in my life – there are times when I do feel loved, which is important to me – and I don’t think I’ve ever confidently felt that way before. It’s lonely too – because I find myself loving them and splitting time between them, sharing it with some, not spending enough time with others – it seems complicated, but it’s really not… almost like it should be more [complicated] than it is. I hate having to explain it to people, so I’ve stopped. They just think I’m odd anyway, and after I explain it, they won’t think any differently. It’s sort of a turtle shell.

The woman I’ve been with the longest is feeling the brunt of my other relationships more than anyone - she is the woman who holds the scruff of my neck and buckles it with an emotional collar – and she’s the one I want here, now, today – someday… and will never have. She’s the one getting hurt from all of this, and she’s the one who holds my heartstrings - and yet, because I know the difference, because I’ve stepped out of the cave and saw something other than shadows on the wall, I can’t go back to having nothing, to settling for Capital Letters and an idealized Japanese image – regardless of how much it means to me. It would set me back for what seems like years – and it wouldn’t be a good thing for anyone involved.

I’m struggling with the D/s structure (or lack thereof) of one relationship. I feel almost cheated out of something that was never given to me because I see her submitting to others freely – and I, in my most un-dominant wisdom, cry and beg (in my head, certainly not out loud) for her to give me just a tiny piece of that – and I’ve been trying quite a while… and she just won’t give it. I feel cheated and indignant toward her for it, and it’s not her fault. I don’t know what I’ve done wrong – and I must have, at some point, done something wrong. I can’t just take that from her. I can’t just ‘take’ from anybody… and people have said to me “just drop her to her knees”… I can’t and won’t do that… not until she does it willingly and without coaxing. I refuse to initiate it – she knows what I want and if she ever feels like she can give that to me, she knows how. It’s almost as if I’m mourning the relationship she and I don’t have (and seemingly never will)… which is silly – and yet I’m having a set of restraints and collar made for her right now – why?......... But, she’s still my heart and I adore and cherish her – the other side, the vanilla side of us, the partnership – is so, so strong. Two/three years ago I never would have thought to say “my dominant side feels closeted”, but it does – and it’s screaming at me and bursting at the seams right now…which brings me to my other relationship…

…With her I feel diminutive – not in an outward way, and certainly by nothing she says or does. I am just in a constant flux of inadequacy with her and every time I feel like I am beginning to get over it, starting to open up (like I was in the beginning with her) again, my entire body screams ‘retention’ and I feel like there’s an old wooden doorstop shoved under my feet. I love this woman – hard – maybe more than I should, but that’s neither here nor there. My stressors come from apprehension and from my own body image issues – which are only getting desperately worse. A tiny bit of covetous head space is there, too – but I can’t put my finger on it – on the why’s and when’s… nor the limits I’d need to create…

My heart can’t stand them touching each other – any of the three of them. My head gets it – I can actually war with myself during the process of this – I can watch and I can see it happening and enjoy it, I can get involved and its lovely… and deep down my heart just wrenches over it and I argue with myself – about the silliness, about creating my own double-standard, about my own attachments and lack of joy at their pleasure – I’m working on it, and I’m being honest about it – and I don’t want it to stop just because I feel like this. That much I know.

Work is going well. I don’t know how to describe how I feel about it. Someone brought it close to home last night when I was talking about being upset at the possibility of one of our biggest projects being scrapped for lack of funding, and she said “well, to be honest – you’re just a GA in this. You shouldn’t be getting caught up in the process – just do your job and learn something from it.”… and well, what am I supposed to learn? I feel like I’m teaching everyone else – almost constantly. This job concerns subject matter that is far too passionate for me to separate myself from it and consider it ‘just a job’. And if that were the case, and I was “just a GA” – then why am I running the show – the entire show – from A to Z?

I hate my body. I am repulsed by it more often than not. I can’t even look in the mirror anymore – it’s getting worse and worse and I don’t know exactly why. The physicality of it isn’t changing – its not getting ‘worse’ per se…but something is triggering this and I can’t put a fingertip on it.

I slept terribly last night.
Ten feet in front of me, there’s a dream catcher spinning.
I’m staring at a section of a wall that was destroyed in Katrina and still hasn’t been replaced, just covered by the mold nazi’s. It just doesn’t go away.
I miss my aussie. SO. MUCH. I wish I could fly there and run with her daughter in the mornings and make her breakfast and show my “fiancé” (there, first time I said it) everything I learned from there.
I’m sitting next to a bucket of blue-green yoga mats.
My feet are up on a chair and I’m sitting on a huge pillow from India.
My back hurts.
I miss my damn dogs. They’ve been driving me nuts, and they’re training is regressing a bit – I need to work with them more.
I feel so unaccomplished for not finishing my readings last night. It’s the one thing I had to do and I didn’t finish.
I feel huge.
On the wall next to me is a sticker that says “Against your will is Against the Law”… why can’t they just change it to SSC?

I need to pick a day to go to Seattle in Oct/Nov for a few days. Soon.
I need to see my family.
I need to clean my house.

For a long time, I’ve been told repeatedly that at the end of Chopin’s Ballade No. 1 in G minor was disjunctive and thrown together – like he started with a great idea, a great motif, and didn’t know how to end it. I’ve listened to it thousands of times since. Yesterday I was at the piano, playing around with it a bit – and I finally understand why he ended it the way he did. Can’t explain it – but I do get it.. so, sorry Sir… please remove me from Musician’s Hell, for at least the next few days. Well ok – until I go practice the Bach in an hour – but I’m terminally in Bach’s hell anyway.

...just kind of numb. More later.

This is going to be particularly frenzied, so I express regret in advance before you’re subjected to its contents. I just need to type.

I have to pee but I don’t want to get up because I’d have to shut down this desktop computer, shut down my laptop, and search for another computer when I was done (I’m in a library)… WAY too much effort.. so as you read this know that my bladder feels like it’s about to friggin’ BURST. (I KNOW you wanted to know that – lol)

“I never knew a heart could live inside the rust from all your rain” – Drilled a Wire Through My Cheek - Blue October (I love this line)… there are a few people right now I could apply this to. I decided to save this line because it’s the best one I’ve heard in a while. If you know me at all, you know that I don’t listen to lyrics in music about 99% of the time. In fact, other than a few select arias, there are probably only a few songs I could sing to – mainly Zeppelin, the doors, Janis, and this one song by rolf harris. I’ve never been one to listen to lyrics unless the piece was composed in the 60’s/70’s and actually meant something – it has nothing to do with the music. If I wanted to listen to lyrics, I would have been a poetry major… and so generally I can’t stand looped and sampled beat tracks that are lyrical without any music underneath it… I know you probably think I’m ridiculous for it – it’s just how I roll.

I’m about to walk into a kitchen to cook lunch for 30 people – some kind of shrimp pasta apparently – for a few deans, a few famous musicians, a few professors, a few administrators, and a couple other graduate students. How do I get myself involved in these things?... I’m nervous about the meeting. I’m nervous that I know what people are walking into it feeling – on all sides of the coin.. because that’s where I am now, on all sides of the coin (and then some).. it’s an odd feeling and my loyalty keeps shifting and planing from one department to the next, from one person’s covetous disposition to another’s view of the business plan of the program to another’s emotional outbursting mind to another’s outsider with-all-the-money point of view… and this meeting will make or break the outcome of every single task I complete for the next year… and I have to be there to do what I was hired to do – to be the mediator… to calm people down and make them know that everything will be ok – that nobody is a wolf… that we have common goals. It’s an odd thing to know that you were truly hired to be used..really used. But I’m good at it… and I’ll do what I need to do. There’s pressure – pressure because every single person in the room can be a deciding factor in my future – both immediate and long-term – in terms of my PhD, my career, the way I’ll be teaching 40 children how to love music over the next 10 months…my networks, my financial stability – they hold all my cards – and I have to play them right – which means I have to please every single person in that room. So – I’m a bit anxious. I wish I had one of my lover’s anxiety pills right now.. and perhaps I shouldn’t have had two large cups of coffee …

I am implausibly keyed up about our new students and the semester in progress. This is the first semester since Katrina that I feel normal – like a student of music and antiquity and culture… like I can learn and play at the same time and enjoy it and focus… instead of just going through the motions of taking classes, doing homework, going home, working, etc… it was all separate, all with a commuter mentality… it feels integrated again. It feels like people around me are starting to care again. It feels like students are starting to focus again… I didn’t realize just how “off” everything was until the past two weeks in realizing how right things seemed to be…I’m not sure what changed – maybe just the passage of time, maybe some new blood, maybe my own internal things…but others are noticing too. I’m remembering why I chose this school over the others that were more prestigious, and feeling less resentment toward the whole of it.

They want me to wear a tux. Maybe with heels.

I need to contact the Youth Leadership council today and request their 15 best orchestral students to teach and get involved in the program. I need to contact a local charter school and find some beginners. I need to work out a curriculum for a 12 week music education program – within the next few days. I need to create a student/student recruitment program, a feeder program, work on finding free instruments for 25 students, sit in a room with 50 music ed students and pick and choose them in almost predator/prey mode… deciding which ones get to help me and which don’t – and they’ll be honored to be chosen.. and that makes me feel so good. I need to set up a meeting with the NO French Consulate artistic liaison…

…I need to center myself before I play tonight – before I give her my wrists to restrain and allow her to do wickedly erotic things to my body for a few hours. I know my limits will be pushed tonight. I know I’ll break some barriers. I’m looking forward to it. I hope I will please her.

I need to find out when my sister’s surgery is scheduled for because I have a feeling it’s very soon – and I need to be there. I need to remind my mother I’m human and that the whole world isn’t staring at her just because I want to marry a woman. I feel so disconnected from my family right now – and as you know, they’re everything to me. It’s not making any of this easier. I can’t wait to go home and sit under the apple trees and take in the scent of New England and walk through the woods and remind myself where I came from. It’s the best therapy on the planet for me. I should plan that soon…

I bought music – I can’t wait to hand it out to my brass colleagues.., I begged the principal player in the philharmonic to coach us for free… and he agreed. I think we’re going to do great things, and I think we’re going to make beautiful music together.

NOCB starts next Tuesday and being in that room with those 80 musicians makes me feel closer to home than any other place in New Orleans. When I play, I’m at home. When I play well, I’m at home curled up on my mother’s leather couch in an afghan made by my grandmother sipping hot tea with the picture window wide open and the scent of wood stove churning in…

Time to breathe and go about my day… no more coffee for me… and now I don’t even have to pee anymore.

"...and when boys have learnt their letters, and are able to understand what is written, as before words spoken, they place before them on their benches to read, and compel them to learn by heart the compositions of good poets, in which there are admonitions, and many details, and praises, and encomiums, of good men and former times, in order that the boy may imitate them through emulation, and strive to become such himself. Again, the music-masters, in the same way, pay attention to sobriety of behavior, and take care that the boy commit no evil: besides this, when they have learnt to play on the harp (lyre), they teach them the compositions of other good poets, and those lyric, setting them to music; and they compel rhythm and harmony to become familiar to the boys souls, in order that they may become more gentle, and being themselves more rhythmical and harmonious, they may be able both to speak and to act: for the whole life of man requires rhythm and harmony".

Music in Educational Thought and Practice: Bernarr Rainbow

I'm better today. I'm grounded. I'm feeling loved. Thanks to the 7 of you for calling/emailing after my last post...and to the two women who held me as I slept last night... Thank you.

Today will be good. It's a beginning. I'm sitting in the music library as I write this - one I have helped build from the ground up in the past 4 years, listening to Debussy, surrounded by over a ten thousand pieces of music, grounded by its history, humbled by its perfection, and feeling like this is going to be the.best.semester.ever. Before 8:30am I kissed two amazing women, solved 2 problems at work, got paid $150 for 'being an amazing guest performer liaison", talked to my major professor, found an amazing book to read, saw my ex (E) and took a deep breath and continued to walk forward, made a lunch date with two good friends and favorite queers, ran some fingers over my horn and smiled, set up 3 meetings and two recruitment events, swept a floor, tightened 10 music stand screws, and sent an email to my horn teacher from before Katrina telling him how excited I am to be able to work with him again.

In through the nose - out through the mouth.