thoughts.

Mmm, the All Your Base meme. Love bad translations from Japanese. Although engrish.com is the canonical storehouse of poor translation.

The Peninsula Cantare concert was this afternoon, and it went pretty well. I bought cufflinks and studs, and after some wrestling with the cuffs, whose like I'd never seen before, my new tux looks extremely snappy.

Aikido was good, except that my uke (guy taking falls) for my test on the 11th is now testing for shodan that same night, so I have to find someone else. I'm happy for him, though.

Ah, Canada

Life is. It's not really about you, or him, or her, or anyone. My life is a sum of what comes to me, and how I react to it, the choices I make in responding or acting. I find it constantly seductive to decide where I think my choices will take me; I have variously laid this desire for destiny, but especially onto relationships. Really, if you want security and reassurance, in another person who loves you is a great place to find it. For a time. Then it all sort of crumbles, because there is no security and reassurance and what the hell were you looking for that for anyway? What exactly did you expect?

I realized this weekend that I haven't performed on stage in a couple of years, and I wonder if part of what I've been lacking has been the ephemeral instant-ness of singing. I throw myself onstage, and whatever music I know is what the audience gets, plain and simple. Sure, in the last-minute crunch I know the music better than I felt I did, but in the moment of performance nothing matters but what comes out of me right then. It's no longer important that I should have practiced more, or the guy behind me is singing the wrong words. That moment of music comes out and then it's on to the next one, no worrying, no analyzing, the notes happen and then they are forgotten. Most audience members won't remember a botched measure: they'll just know that the piece was flowing and coherent and then it was like dropping a pebble into a quiet pond, and by moving on as though it didn't happen, we bring the audience back with us into the flow of the piece.

Work tomorrow. Wheee!


Chris