Piano Aphasic

I've decided that I must have something like piano aphasia.
I haven't learned a new song on the piano in two years, and it's been even longer than that since I studied it on a regular basis (some quick mental calculations tell me it has been something like five years- but maybe only four). Still, I have kept certain beloved songs in my memory, so that my fingers won't completely lose the touch: the Titanic theme song, Ballad of Love, La Valse d'Amelie, L'Onde d'Espoir, There Can be Miracles, Moonlight, El Caballero del Bosque, Cloudy, and a certain hymn my mother loves. That exhausts my repetoir. Nine songs. That, plus some theoretical knowledge of music on my part and some very nice memories are the extent of the money my parents poured into lessons at the Academia de la Musica in our little town for five years.
And the worst part of it is my current relationship with that beautiful instrument, the piano. You see, I'll sit there, and want to express my soul; know, in fact, that I COULD express my soul on the piano- that's what music is good for, after all, especially the piano's subtle modulations- but, in the end, unless one of my nine songs says it all, I cannot say anything. It is frustrating.
I think this is what it must feel like to be an aphasic. You KNOW that the possibility of saying what you want is there. You might even know what you want to say. You know that, once, you had the linguistic ability to start saying stuff, even if you didn't know yet, quite what you were going to say. But suddenly, you can't. The ability is gone, and you're left, struggling frustratedly with yourself to no avail.
So I have dubbed myself a piano aphasic, doomed to listen to other people speak and hope that they might say, by chance, what my heart wants to.
over 'n out.
E.O.

L1

Lesson of the month:
Guys are people too.
Wow, what a shocker, right? :P

Photography

I have, I've discovered, a new stance on photography. After going all of last semester and most of the summer essentially without a camera, I find that, while I still enjoy taking pictures, I would rather live in my moments than try to be photographing them. Preserving stuff for the future, for your memories, is great, but I think that I need to draw a line between interrupting what's going on to take a picture and taking pictures as things are going on... if that makes any sense.
over 'n out.
E.O.

Percolated

the word of the day.

=)

Expectations

I don't ask a whole lot of my suitemates. If they don't leave their crap all over the bathroom, and clean when it's their turn, then I am reasonably happy with them, and do not feel the need to complain. Of course, I have complained about them before. However, tonight's complaint is much, much more serious.
Do you think it is reasonable to expect that when you are showering, your suitemates' boyfriend(s) not walk in on you? 'Cause I certainly do.
What on earth makes a guy think that, in a dorm which is clearly not co-ed by rooms, he can just walk brazenly into a bathroom where someone is showering?? Obviously, said person will be a girl, and more than likely, said person will be just a tad bit offended that the guy even decided it was ok to open the door and peek in, let alone go right ahead and drop his pants to use the toilet! You'd think that would be obvious. But no. In fact if, when, after stepping out of the shower and covering herself, the offended girl were to slam the door- which this lovely, considerate boy had left open after entering, peeing, and exiting- the guy's girlfriend might feel the need to say something along the lines of "rawr!".
I really have to talk to these people. If they don't understand reason, for example: KEEP THE BLEEDING DOOR SHUT WHEN OTHER PEOPLE ARE SHOWERING YOU INCONSIDERATE TWIT!, then perhaps more drastic measures will have to be implemented. This could be the fourth Home Alone movie in the making. Only time will tell...
over 'n out,
E.O.

grammatical joy

Favorite misspelling of the day:

mellow dramatic (for melodramatic)

I love Flying

I love it SO much.

This is...

...the first post of 20-10, so I feel it should be somehow momentous.
On the other hand, the best thing I can think to say is:
Whew, I think I may finally be packed. Mostly. Until tomorrow, you know. There's always last-minute packing to be done.
Interestingly enough, this next two weeks are going to be mostly full of packing an unpacking: today, to go to Colorado. In Colorado, packing in as many wonderful moments as I can with my dear H. Then, after Colorado, unpacking the CO stuff and then re-packing all my stuff to go back to school. Then unpacking at school.
There's to be lots of catching up, too. With H, with school ppl. Truly a time of new beginnings. Oddly, I never feel as if I am truly experiencing a new beginning unless there's a flight or longish car trip involved (you know, over 3-4 hours). Maybe it's a fruit of my upbringing, but the flipside of the fact that great change always comes on the heels of a long (spatial) voyage is that you get to believing that if there IS long spatial voyage, there must be a new beginning, and if there isn't, there can't be. Good ol' classical conditioning, you are screwing with my head again.
A friend of mine was talking yesterday about how TV has completely formed most people's idea of how life works and what their goals should be in life (think of the typical plotlines of sitcoms, romantic comedies, even police/crime shows, and you'll get the idea). That's not a terribly new concept, to me (or, hopefully, to anyone who's used their noggin in a while) but it got me wondering how many things actually shape what we think we HAVE to do, achieve, and feel in this life. Like, for example, my perception of the relationship between travel and change. Clearly, that relationship doesn't hold up under scrutiny. That one is easy to see through, but it makes me wonder how many more of our ideas and/or beliefs are similarly absurd?
It's also kind of like writing a paper. The thing hangs over your head, and you think about it all the time, for weeks before you actually have to start writing it, and then when you do, you strive your very best to make it perfect, to make it convincing, to make it, in short, a work of prosaic art (and i know prosaic isn't a derivation of prose, but i want you to be clear that that's how i'm using it). And then you hit the two or so hours before you have to turn the sucker in, and you realize that you don't actually HAVE to manufacture the perfect paper. You just have to make something mostly decent, that will be intelligible. In short, you realize that your expectations don't match up to, well... reality.
So I wonder how much of life is like that. If it makes any sense to you.
over 'n out.
E.O.