i'd like to think this stuff is true...

'your name means' website from Cy...typed in my name and LO AND BEHOLD... Gentle, affectionate and tolerant you are nonetheless determined and ambitious with the ability to lead. Sympathetic and understanding you are a humanitarian who wishes to improve the lives of others less fortunate. You have a keen intellect, strong intuition and creative ideas which are always put to practical purpose. You are loved by others for your inspiring optimism and for being a genuine friend. pretty cool to read such things about yourself, don't you think? try your name... it's something to do, anyhow...

Liz took this picture at Applebees last night...it makes me happy to look at it, so I thought I'd share...I'm so glad I have great friends to skip a rainy night track workout with me...

Rainy Day

It's going to rain for the next 48 hours, I believe. Yes, worse things have happened (and on the bright side, I don't have to go water the yard of a neighbor who is out of town), but it makes exercising, driving, FUNCTIONING all the more annoying.

I went out to the track today, but we didn't end up doing the workout because it was POURING out. So, we just went to Applebees instead. Not my favorite restaurant, but we had fun anyhow. Unfortunately, Liz got in an accident on the way there, so she was a bit bummed.

Doing well with recording my practice...seems to help me focus and get things done. I'm not sure why, since it's not like there is any added pressure...or even motivation. I guess it's just organization.

I spent an hour at Caribou today talking to an old friend I recently got reaquainted with via Friendster...she made me feel a lot better about auditioning, and just being a musician in general. Sometimes I feel so discouraged...like I'm never going to get a job and everything I've done up to this point in my life is completely futile because of it. And, that even if I do end up getting 'what I want', there isn't much point to that either. Because really, why try to recreate music that is 200 years old to a whole bunch of people who aren't really listening? It's kind of a demented art form, I must say. It seems as though nothing is ever new. We're basically living in the past. And, music is so...fleeting. It's just sound, right? It disappears so quickly and you can't prove it ever existed.

BUT (despite all that), talking to her made me feel a lot more positive.

It's just committment. If you really do the work, eventually things will line up in your favor and you'll get a job. It's just a matter of plodding along and realizing that you might be doing so for quite a while...it might not happen this year, or next, or even the year after that. It sucks to be so poor in the meantime, but eventually it'll work out...and having something that you love and believe in is so rare...I should feel lucky, not the opposite.

Anyway, enough. It's time for bed so I can get up before work and practice. I don't get much in, but it's a good start to the day...makes me feel a bit less frustrated at work. (I have a great job, by the way. They're nice and give me a lot of leeway in timing, and it's for the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society, so at least I'm doing office work for a good cause. But all the same, it's kind of hard to be spending so much of my time and energy doing something that has absolutely NO relevance towards what I want to do with my life.)

I wish money didn't matter so much. I want to be able to just practice all day, but one has to earn a living somehow. No one has the leniency to do whatever they want all day, I know. I just sometimes wish I had a sponsor. Too bad I'm not THAT talented, eh?

twenty-something...

Today was Ta's 24th birthday, so we all went out to Nighttown for some drinks and dessert. It was a blast...her birthday always starts the new year out right. :) We walked there (so no-one had to be the designated driver), but then it started monsooning and we had to finagle rides...that kind of made it even better though...mimosas and bread pudding...what could be better?

pretty jojo

more me and ta (yes, it's sideways...)

dan, phil

me, ta

ta, shuai, jojo

my new haircut--yes, i'm completely and totally vain

changing ta's tire at the crack of dawn on friday morning...

more great news

I hadn't been getting ANY mail for the past 3 weeks. I should have known something funky was going on. I finally found my mail lady and found out that she thought we had moved, so had been marking the mail 'return to sender'. wonderful. (is that even legal? don't I have to fill out a change of address form for that to happen??)

bills, orchestra audition lists, exchanged shoes, not to mention my new yorker magazines...all these places to call and explain that i am, in fact, alive and living in the same place...grrrrr.

phil with bass (just posting this so that phil can use it as his profile picture...aren't i nice?)

maybe i didn't derserve to have a bike anyhow

So, this morning Liz called from Chicago...she didn't leave a message, but I heard from Kurt that perhaps she was just calling to make fun of me...I was the last one with her bike, was running late for work, and accidentally put her front tire on backwards. My face is red...

i might have lost my mind

I'm not sure I want this to be public, but (gulp) here it is...

I made 2 new blogs--one for work outs, and one for practicing.

http://thiscouldbeafarce.blogspot.com
http://doireallywanttoknow.blogspot.com

Hopefully they'll help me keep on track and better able to handle this vast amount of time I seem to have been awarded now that I'm not in school. Now I just need to get up from my computer chair and start practicing so I have something to write about...

it's probably my fault...

This was my bike. Today, it was stolen from the back of my garage. Yes, I should have brought it into my house. But, I didn't. And now I'm out another $1,300. I don't have the kind of funds to deal with this. So much for triathlons this year, eh?

As a postscript...I know that worse things have happened, and that I really have a lot to be happy about. But still...it just kind of sucks, you know?

No more "Naive Su", at least. All doors locked at all times, Renter's Insurance paid. Perhaps it's good this happened so that something much worse didn't happen later on. It's kind of sad though, that you can't just trust people.

flashbacks from mr.rubato

if you haven't seen this already-it's a must. some
kid lip-syncs to this really popular romanian dance
song.

http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/206373

click on "watch this movie"

enjoy

elizabeth says i look hardcore, but i think i just look scary, with really bad running form...

me at the track workout last night...any hard work i did was negated by huge amounts of brownie sundae/macaroni and cheese, unfortunately...

and then i thought...

Dear Reader

Baudelaire considers you his brother, and Fielding calls out to you every few paragraphs as if to make sure you have not closed the book, and now I am summoning you up again, attentive ghost, dark silent figure standing in the doorway of these words.

Billy Collins

new week, new record...

Today I ran 16m for the first time. I'm so glad this coming week is a step back week...the long run will only be 12, so that'll be a nice relief. Elizabeth met me in Solon at 7 and rode her bike while I ran a 4m warm up. Totally awesome of her, since I know biking at 6.1m/hour isn't quite a workout. :) Then, we ran a 12m loop around Solon starting at 8. It was a nice run, although I got a nasty side stitch for the last couple of miles. I hate that, because it makes me want to cry in pain, but it feels so lame since it's not muscular or even cardiovascular...just LAME! I have to figure out what works for me as far as getting through it. I think just forgetting about it, mainly. Unfortunately, that's not always so easy. Bill Wagner ran the last 6m with us, and took us on some trails, which was a nice relief from the sun. I did the whole thing at about a 9:20 pace, which is about the norm for me. Again, nice of Elizabeth to take it easy with me and run more slowly...she's supposed to be tapering for Chicago tri next weekend, but still...I know there were times when her legs were itching to go faster, but she still stayed with me. Good friend, eh?

Natasha gets back into town this Wednesday...I'm excited to see her again. It's been about 4 months...the longest I've ever gone without seeing her since freshman year, I do believe. It'll be nice to have a next door neighbor as a best friend again. :) Jojo lives down the street now...just .3 of a mile, so hopefully I'll still see her quite a bit, but it'll still be different than being roommates, obviously. But, I guess everything is different now...perhaps it's for the better. This is the first August of my 'waking' life that I'm not going back to school. Kind of odd...I'm not sure how I feel about it yet. I am really glad my students are slowly trickling back into town because it'll get my routine back to something more regular. Plus, I miss not seeing them every week!

I got a phone call from my sister saying she tried to undo a perm she had gotten...and now her hair is fried. Anyone have any suggestions on repair? I told her she should just use this opportunity to shave her head and start again...I don't know that she liked that idea though...

my bloody, nasty toe after running today. I had no idea I would be taking off my shoe to find a sock full of blood. yuck. Maybe I'm too squeamish and wimpy for all this running...I tend to complain about such things, and I don't particularly like blood...

Greek Fair and such

Last night, we all went to the Greek Fair in Cleveland Heights. There were a lot of people there, and the dancing and music was great. We ate a lot too, but I'm not feeling very well today because of it, so I won't mention the food. (Although, the desserts WERE out of this world...chocolate Baklava...yummm...)

Afterwards, Liz and David (and momentarily Bryce) came over the chill at my house, where Phil and Dan were already hanging out. We all had a really good time, although midway my stomach started to bother me. Remind me not to eat (ugh--fried!) calimari anytime soon...

Oh, and some good news...this morning I finally broke down and got my eyebrows waxed (I had been resisting, but finally realized that the $15 I would save was hardly worth the 2 hours of torture in front of the mirror with a box of tissues--does plucking make anyone else sneeze uncontrolably?). SO, as I was checking out, I by chance actually looked at my receipt (imagine that!) and noticed that the gift certificate I thought I had lost is on my account...so I have $25 free there! Haircut, here I come...just when I was starting to depair in the fact that I was going to have to wait until Thanksgiving when I went home so that my mom might pay. :) It's been since April, so it's already desperately overdue. Thanks Ta, for the awesome birthday certificate!

My lunch is ready...I'm hoping bland pasta will sooth my suffering stomach...then sometime this afternoon---THE GROCERY STORE...I really haven't been in over a month...we get things when we need them, but haven't done a real shopping. So, it's definitely time...I miss having fresh fruit around.

the dancing stage...

dancing

greek kids dancing

my new eyebrows...phil tried to take a picture,
but that only resulted in me breaking a wine glass...

me, baruch, and phil...baruch looks REALLY happy to be on phil's lap, eh?

phil chilling

me dying on the couch (i would say it was food poisoning, but i probably just overate...typical, unfortunately)

dan, a couple of sheets to the wind

liz with her full glass of wine (thanks, dan!)

liz and amie

me and bryce

bryce, me, liz with DESSERTS!!!

liz and david

me after fries

amie and chris

Remind me not to get hush puppies above the Mason Dixon Line...

On Wednesday, I did a quick 4.2(2) m run with Bryce and Elizabeth before the open water swim in Lake Erie. The lake was SO choppy...my swimming was HORRIBLE and every time around, I swore I was going to just quit for the day. But, I managed to get through the workout (although it was slightly shortened). I couldn't manage to get all of my out-of-control hair into my swim cap and therefore ended up with a huge rat's nest in my hair. It reminded me of when I was in 3rd and 4th grade and refused to let my mom get the knots out of my hair for the solid 2 years...Luckily, I've matured since then and Kurt had conditioner, so everything was alright (although we almost had to get out the scissors...)

Afterwards, Liz, Kurt, and I went to Joe's Crab Shack, where I've never been before. It was a nice and relaxed atmosphere, and the food was pretty good...although the hush puppies were a bit of a dissapointment. They weren't bad, they just didn't live up to my Cajun-style standards...The desserts, on the other hand, were really great--especially the Banana's Foster...still though...I can't wait to go home and have some bread pudding with rum sauce from Don's Seafood Hut. yummmm....it's been too long since I've been back to Louisiana--almost a year already! I missed crawfish boil season AGAIN...

chocolate cake (not from a fuel belt this time!)

bananas foster

eating dessert at the crab shack after the open water swim

the chicago tri group (minus liz, plus me)

lake erie waterfall

Race Day

Today I did a 10m race---The Perfect Ten-Miler---I met Rich King there and ran with him. It was a lot of fun. I managed 9:17 pace, even after a 5m warm up with Liz beforehand (I had to get 15m in and Liz 17). So, that's alright. I'm going to have to do 9:10 to break 4 hours, but maybe that's too lofty a goal. I'll see after the next couple weeks of training. Liz and Amie did 8:00 the whole time--they're rock stars!

After the race, we headed over to Bryce's first Half-Iron Man. He was AMAZING. He finished 6th overall and won his age group. We got there in time to see a lot of the run...we cheered him on at 3 different spots along the course, and then got to the finish in time to see him cross the line. He's pretty tough...I would have stopped and cried after the bike, for sure. :) Anyway, I was totally proud to be friends with such an athlete...

Tonight, I went to see the Aristocrats with Phil (Liz, David, Amie, Chris)...it got a little long in parts, but was overall pretty funny...if you can handle the same ridiculously vulgar joke being told for an hour and a half. I'm glad I went, but I'm not sure I could actually recommend it to anyone...

Time for bed so I can hopefully get some flute work done this week. If I don't start early Monday morning, it's all over. :)