Originally posted 07.11.2004
What to do? I have words, so many, that they want to spill. I’m lonely. Alone again. My roommate is out of town. My boyfriend and I broke up. It’s a beautiful July day—not too hot, low humidity, clear blue sky.
I had some work to do. I had a gig, playing violin for the cocktail hour of an immense wedding party at the St. Regis Hotel in midtown Manhattn. I was contracted for this gig by a fellow violinist whose perception of my abilities is much higher than my own. We met three years ago at an audition for a coveted spot with Underground New York, the agency that doles out banners and amps to a select few performers. She was impressed by my audition—a medley of fairly fast old-timey fiddle tunes. I was equally impressed with her performance.
She’s what I consider a real violinist, with a deep rich tone and no fear of the higher positions. Regardless, neither of us was successful in that audition. But she calls me from time to time with work. So I spent hours a day for the last two weeks brushing up on some jazz standards and learning a few really corny tunes and trying to broaden my tone and strengthen my vibrato. All that work and I played in a cold room with a mute strangling the bridge of my fiddle. Poor thing sounded like it had a cold.
It was a short gig though, and I’m home now, wishing I was hungry enough to cook dinner or treat myself to a bowl of soup at Olivine. I’m struggling with what to do with myself besides smoke or nibble on wasabi peas or straighten up the living room. My hands are too tired to play right now (they’ve been crapping out really early in practices. Is this an early sign of arthritis?) and I don’t want to read. The thought of renting a movie is a little appalling. Besides, I’d still have at least three hours before I could fall asleep.
A friend once told me that she felt incredibly indulgent going to movies on beautiful days. It was her way, one of her ways, of thumbing her nose at the universe, I think. Of saying, “I’m not about to take a beautiful day seriously, because there will be more of them.” I can’t do this. Not that I can actually get myself to enjoy the beautiful day. I don’t go for a long bikeride or a walk in the park. I generally pace the floor and brood about how I should be doing something out there. Something with other people. Anything. But unlike Janice I can’t take the beautiful day for granted, so I take it for guilted, as though I were actively snubbing God’s gift, sitting around a garden pulling petals off the flowers.
