Phoooiee

Monday, July 31, 2006

Dear Liquid Pork Gun:

I move that we continue our longstanding debate using my blog as a forum.

Here is my latest point.

Human progress in the form of technology is largely useless, because as our quality of life improves, the quality of life that we come to expect will also improve.

However, technological progress does have some value, because of the emotional satisfaction garnered from the act of invention.

So, it is actually the process that is important, not the results. The results are immaterial, as long as we feel we have accomplished something. But ultimately, people are not better off simply because they live in a more advanced society.

The idea of gravity is striking me as being really weird right now. I mean, think about it. It's like something invisible is always pulling you down toward the ground and it takes a lot of effort not to stick to the ground.

I think that's weird, and maybe even sort of scary.

The Confusion of Childish Hyperlexia

Okay, I've been told that I should blog more, and since my adulthood is not that interesting, I will do as I was told and share a childhood experience that sticks out in my mind.

One time when I was pretty little, I would say probably under age 8, my brother and my cousins and I were being children, and drawing pictures of ridiculous-looking people or monsters or something, then labeling their parts. Most of these labels used normal little-kid language, like "gross feet," or "ugly hair," but I decided to get creative with the alliteration and label "putrid puke." My Aunt Jan laughed for about a year and I had no idea why.

So there's my blog for today.

Turby!!

Last might at Wegman's, I signed my credit card receipt as "Turby!!" and no one noticed. I suppose I should have known, because last week I signed as "Fart" and they didn't see that either. I thought the exclamation points might have helped, though.

Saturday, July 22, 2006

When I was in high school, I took cello lessons from a woman at the local college. I got to be pretty good, but I have no idea how, since I wasted all the time in my lesson complaining about the small town where I lived and various other things.

The memory that stands out the most was when I explained to my cello teacher that modern society was evil, and that my plan for life was to find a small piece of land in the middle of nowhere and do subsistence farming with my lesbian girlfriend.

She listened to this and said, "okay, sounds like a good plan."

Then we went on with the lesson, or my complaining, one of the two, and I had no idea that I had just said something weird.

I really wonder what she must have thought of me.

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

My husband is a piece of crap.

Okay, he isn't a piece of crap ALL of the time. Just some of the time. But in a lot of ways, it stinks being married to someone who occasionally behaves like a giant turd. No pun intended.

Saturday, July 15, 2006

Does anyone even look?

Lately I have taken to signing my credit card reciepts in creative ways. No one even seems to notice.

So far I have signed as "Stench" and "Noodles," and no one has said a word.

I also drew a circle once on the signature line. No response from the cashier.

Then my husband joined in with "Poopy" at the Safeway this evening.

I don't know whether to be disgusted or amused.

Tuesday, July 11, 2006

A good reason to have a baby.

One of my friends is trying to decide whether or not she wants kids. So she asked me for some good reasons that someone might want to have a baby.

Here is the reason that she liked the best:

Your children will grow up to be VOTERS. And so will all the children of evangelical Christians. Who tend to have a lot of children. It is essential to the future of the country that people like us reproduce.

Sunday, July 09, 2006

I am terrible at my bicycle.

I guess that having a baby wasn't the best thing for my cycling ambitions. For one thing, I am 40 pounds heavier, which doesn't help. For another, I ate the whole house while I was pregnant and I never exercised, so I'm in terrible shape. Add in an episiotomy and a tear, and I am not doing too well on the bike right about now.

I hate being slow. And I am really slow. And I hate it when my butt hurts, and my feet go numb, and my legs are uncooperative.

In addition to this, I stopped by at Chipotle on the way home to get food for my husband, who has to spend the whole day sitting on the couch. This is because he fell off his bicycle doing 25 mph, as opposed to my 10 or 11 mph. As much as I feel bad for him, I also feel impressed that he is capable of injuring himself that badly on the bicycle. If it had happened to me, nothing would have happened because I am TOO SLOW.

At any rate, since I was there, I also got another burrito for myself. I only ate half of it, but I just found out that the whole thing was worth about 1200 calories. That is far too much, and I am irritated because just the tortilla was worth nearly 400 calories. I am indignant that they do not offer whole wheat tortillas.

I can hardly fit into my bike shorts as it is, and this is not going to help.

Thursday, July 06, 2006

I don't think I should have to like everything Mozart wrote.

This Independence Day, I went to play chamber music with some friends. We played the Schubert cello quintet in C major, which I had to sightread even though I hadn't played for 5 months. I wasn't so good to begin with, but I got a lot better very quickly. That made me happy, because I was worried about it. I hate having a long break like that, but I guess having a baby is a good excuse.

After we finished, I was asked to pick a string quartet by either Mozart, Haydn, or Beethoven. My response was that it didn't really matter, except that I would rather not play Mozart.

Immediately, the first violinist, whom I had not seen for years, said, "You mean that you are not yet of an age where you can appreciate Mozart?"

Now, I appreciate Mozart. I think his operas and vocal music are absolutely unparallelled. I also think that the piano music he wrote is wonderful. However, the music he wrote for strings is hit or miss for me. Some of it is fine, some of it is amazing, but the great majority of Mozart's works for strings gets on my nerves. There is so much irritating frilly ornamentation, and the chord structure isn't very interesting.

I'm not claiming to be the expert, I'm not saying that it's bad music, I am just saying that I personally don't like it. It's a matter of OPINION, you see. And I just don't feel that my personal dislike for certain works by Mozart (read: Eine Kleine Nachtmusik) means that I am somehow stupid, or immature, or musically illiterate. I'm sure that there are many people who are much older than I am who also don't care for Mozart.

I told this violinist that it wasn't that I didn't like Mozart as a whole, I just preferred the vocal music to the instrumental music. Then he said, "But all Mozart's music is vocal."

No. It's not. Vocal music is music where you sing. I know he MEANT that Mozart's melodies have a singing quality, but I reserve the right to draw a distinction between vocal music that involves actual voices, and "vocal" music that involves violins. I happen to like one, and I happen to not like the other.

I have a great love for classical music, but I really don't understand why so many people who play it have to be so uppity and self-righteous. It's like they have all forgotten that art is subjective, instead believing that their opinion is the definitive truth about everything.

I think if the whole culture of classical music could stop being like this, more people would like it. I don't think it helps to make people feel inferior for no reason at all. It turns people off to the real value that is there in the music. I know it turned me off to performance as a career.

Tuesday, July 04, 2006

Once, a long time ago, I was involved with someone. He was a horrible person and he was very violent with me.

This happened because I was young and I had no idea what was going on. It lasted only a month.

Now, every time I meet someone whom I haven't seen since that time, I just know that they are thinking to themselves that my husband must also be a horrible person, just because I'm involved with him.

I feel extremely guilty about this.