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Thinking 'Bout Somethin'

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You're welcome.

I forget that boring and busy aren't mutually exclusive

Somehow, when I started this blog, I had the idea that since I was not going to have the time to do a ton of interesting stuff (read: travel, concerts, creative projects), that my life would be boring.  Hence the name of this blog, and my attempt to find joy in the everyday, the ordinary.  What I miscalculated was how unbelievably busy I would be, even though I was also boring.

I forget that when I am really, really busy my brain tends to shut down all parts that are not needed right then and I tend do just do everything in the order in which they are kicking my ass. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it means I get everything done on time even if I am running flat out for a week or two, but it means I am never prepared, mentally, for the next thing.

This week, that means I got through the school work I had due on Tuesday, then took a deep breath and got through the work-work I had due through today, and now I'm looking up and realizing there will be people in my house on Friday and I have not cleaned AT ALL. So I have to do that. And then I will spend the weekend on my class project, and the coming week freaking out about a big event at work and then the following weekend on my choir stuff and more class project stuff.

(Also, I have a root canal in two weeks.  So that is a joy.)

But back to the people part!  This month (actually, this very DAY) marks the four year anniversary of Sarah and I moving in to our apartment.  Which means is five and a half year since I've moved into this building on my quiet street in Washington Heights and became a Real New Yorker.

That is boggling. Four years is the longest Sarah or I have lived in one place since we were both in middle school.  It means this place, with its occasional bug problem and its high ceilings and its utter lack of decent closet space and relative huge square footage is MY HOME.  There are framed things on the wall (thanks to a dear friend) and everything in the kitchen has a place (mostly) and the bathroom quirks barely register anymore.  Somehow it still feels temporary in some way, maybe because in the long run it is - we don't own it, and we never will, and eventually we will move on.

But eventually isn't today or even this year, so I need to deal with the fact that my home is quirky and imperfect and mine, and buy some paint this spring and put my mark on it some more. 

It's almost here!

Sometimes, you just need to be reminded that Spring is just around the corner.

Then, everything else seems doable.

but like a child at home

I've fallen down on the blogging - again! - but I have so much to talk about now!  (The upside to be too busy to blog, I suppose.)

This weekend was my second concert with my choir, and it went off so, so well.  We all felt it, I think, about halfway through the concert, that we were all in this moment together and all feeling the weight and joy and pathos and humor of these songs, and that we had worked so hard to get here, and were so proud!

It was interesting for me to sing for the people who were there to see me.  My mom has obviously been coming to concerts of mine since I was in grade school, but she reminded me that she hadn't seen me sing since I was in a church choir in Arizona, back in 2002.  My best friend from high school was there too, and she has to have sat through a dozen or more of my concerts in the past, but she hadn't heard me sing since college.

I can't believe it had been that long.

I can't believe I didn't have this in my life for so long.

Singing on my own is one thing - it's fun and easy and I can stop for a while when my life gets busy.  But it doesn't have the same overwhelming feeling of belonging that singing in a group brings.  Being part of this group is a real commitment - a hard one, now that I am working full time and also back in school.  But the three hours a week I spend with these people is spiritually transformative, and gives me something I've been missing for a long, long time.  We're not anything other than forty people who happen to enjoy music, but when you put us all together, we are so much more than the sum of our parts.

There will be more concerts in my future, and I hope you'll be able to join me for one of them.  I'm not tooting my own horn here when I say you won't be disappointed.  It's a wonderful group led by a truly gifted and giving music conductor.  (If you want to hear some sample songs by the choir, or join the mailing list in case I get lame and don't email people about a show, visit the Manhattan Choral Ensemble website.)

*

In other, much more mundane realizations, I have somehow stopped going to movies.  I love movies, a lot, and some of them have transformed me almost as much as music does.  I don't really have anyone in NYC to go to movies with, and I've fallen out of the habit.  Now that I get student tickets again, I should make that another of my resolutions - a movie a month! - but seeing as the Netflix film I got in December is still on my coffee table?  I'm not holding out much hope.  *sigh*

I do want to see The Hurt Locker, though.  It looks stunning.

Hey, Hey, Hey, It's...

I keep putting things here that I didn't think I'd put here, but this caught my eye today, and it really hit me hard.  Michelle Obama is starting a campaign to fight childhood obesity:

Childhood Schmobesity

These are all laudable goals in and of themselves, but it’s a terrible mistake to pursue them  in the name of getting rid of fat kids. First, numerous studies indicate that, just as with adults, improving children’s nutrition and activity levels is beneficial to their health, but usually produces little or no weight loss (which is all the more reason to focus on health rather than weight). Nor are thin children in any less need of good food and healthy activities than fat ones. Indeed, over the past 20 years, extensive research has demonstrated that, when studies control for factors such as physical activity levels, weight simply ceases to have any meaningful correlation with health. 

Second, a rich literature on stigmatization shows that the health costs of social stigma are high. I don’t believe Michelle Obama wants to stigmatize fat kids, but a campaign dedicated to eliminating them is guaranteed to do so in a profound way.

I'm not a skinny girl.  The last time I was thin, I think I was six.  There are a lot of reasons for it, and a lot of the blame can (and should) be placed on me.  But I was made uncomfortable by news of this latest crusade against fat kids, and this article pinpointed the reason why.

Sure, I'm all for getting kids moving, teaching them nutrition, getting them healthy.  Type 2 Diabetes is up in kids, heart disease still kills more people in this country than we can count, and obesity has been tangentially linked (correlation, not causation) to many health issues.  But healthy may or may not equal thin.  Thin is dangerous, both for the kids who strive to be thin so badly they end up with eating disorders, and for the kids who are healthy kids who might even play soccer on the side and enjoy their veggies, but for whom (for any number of reasons) they will always tip a little heavier on the BMI scale.

Maybe I am carrying years of metaphoric weight from a culture based around looking thinner and thinner, or from school years where I felt marginalized for my size, but seeing the first lady telling chubby kids it's not okay to be what they are makes me sad in a deep, kind of profound way.

Girls day out!

It's sometimes scary to remember that I have a friend who has known me since I was EIGHT and that she will always know me better than most people, no matter what I do to my hair, or how cool I try to pretend to be.  But mostly it's amazing.

Today, she is finally coming to visit me, and she is bringing her amazing, brilliant, hilarious little girl who is now... EIGHT.  This is a weird year for us!

I've never explored NYC with an eight-year-old, but luckily this one comes with plenty of opinions on what she wants to do, and I come with free admission to most museums in town.  Next time, we'll do a show, but this time, we'll just soak it all in.

Maybe we'll catch a movie...

She keeps a light on

Sometimes, music is the cure to what ails you.

I've been sick this week - sicker than I've been in years - but here I sit at my desk, ready to head off to sing (croak?) some beautiful choral music with my group, listening to Matt Morris sing in my headphones.  I am certainly not going to use this blog to post about most of the music and movies I enjoy (though I will say I had a kickass time at the Motion City Soundtrack show last night).  But Matt's music actually makes me feel better, so I thought I'd share this with you all. 

It's a song about staying strong and staying true to who you are and pushing through when the world is against you.  It's gorgeous, and if you ever have a chance to hear him sing it live, I encourage you to do so.  It will give you chills.



I have a backpack full of school books, an inbox full of work, a head full of notes to memorize and heart full of this song.   It's going to be an okay day!