November 27, 2007 at 11:24 am (music, work)
Let’s see here. Last Tuesday, Paul and I went to the Met to see the tapestries and the Dutch masters. I highly recommend both exhibits. In any case, it was an interesting day: we got to the museum and went to the reception desk, where the man called someone Paul knew who came out and got us. He is a restoration artist-type with the musical instruments. He took us behind the scenes, where they had just received about four different lutes and were measuring and cataloging them. One of the guys there had just moved from Italy and is an old-fashioned luthier: in that he builds lutes (not guitars!).
Then Paul’s friend took us around the museum to see all the viola d’amores: Paul is playing a concert there in May and he is going to talk about the various viola d’amores in the museum’s collection beforehand. It’s ironic he is playing for the Concerts and Lectures series there, as I used to write the press releases for that.
When we went to the actual public display of instruments, Paul’s friend opened a cabinet and some really annoying woman kept hanging around and trying to talk to Paul about how she’d seen a cello with a carved head (lots of viola d’amores have carved heads). Paul had to tell his friend how to restring all of the instruments in preparation for this coming spring.
Then we got to go to a vault full of instruments that aren’t on display. That was quite amazing. There were harps and spinets and violins and gamelans and drums. The coolest thing was a street piano that had all these carved figures whose mouths would open and close while it played (you turned a crank and it sounded like a saloon piano but it was made in 1850 in Brooklyn).
Here’s one I found on the Web sans figures:
The museum took pretty much the entire day, so we went to one of my favorite restaurants from when I lived in NYC (that didn’t close after 9/11), Tibetan Kitchen, and came back home.
On Wednesday I went to DC to visit my bro for Thanksgiving. I got to see my friend Heather, whom I haven’t seen since I lived in NY. She went to college with me and just eloped two weeks ago, which is exciting!
As of yesterday, it looks like I will be moving to a different department at the liberry. I should be there by the end of December. I feel pretty emotionally wrecked from this. In light of all that’s going on I am very glad to have a boyfriend and a cat.
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November 23, 2007 at 9:54 pm (flix)
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November 18, 2007 at 10:04 pm (Uncategorized)
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November 18, 2007 at 10:01 pm (Uncategorized)
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November 17, 2007 at 5:40 pm (Uncategorized)
So I continue to be completely overwhelmed by my crap. I don’t think I’ve ever been organized on a personal level in my entire life. And I have so. much. stuff. I’ve just been carting it around all over the country because I don’t know how to go through it and deal with it. For the sake of my relationship, I’m going to have to figure it out. Luckily Paul is willing to help me out with it a lot (and he’s a very organized person).
I have succeeded in losing pretty much all the weight I put on over the spring summer and early fall. So I’m fitting back in everything I had last winter. (Thank God. I couldn’t afford a new wardrobe.) I’m going to continue to lose weight, though, because I’d like to be the size I was back when I lived in Chicago (got a bit heavier since then). I don’t have a scale and always forget to weigh myself at the gym, but I could tell I was losing weight by my size (and also the first time I weighted myself it said I lost 1/2 of a pound but you could tell a huge difference just by looking at me). Pounds are so silly.
I am seriously considering requesting a transfer to a branch or to another department at the library. We’ll see what happens. The bosses and the higher-ups know this is something on my mind. Kind of sucks since I’m a music librarian, but one does have to maintain one’s sanity.
Paul is coming home with me to Colorado after Christmas. He’s been out of town all week, in Rochester. He and our friend are playing violin in Messiah this weekend. He is also meeting up with his adviser, etc.
On Tuesday, we’re going to the Met to see this exhibit and to play with instruments in the Met’s collection, thanks to friends of Paul’s who work there. And then on Wednesday I go to DC for Thanksgiving.
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November 13, 2007 at 10:07 am (Uncategorized)
all the instruments in paul’s apartment.
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November 8, 2007 at 1:25 pm (Uncategorized)
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November 7, 2007 at 6:55 pm (Uncategorized)
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November 7, 2007 at 4:50 pm (inadequately endowed, noise, politics, silly philly, why I hate noise)
With all due respect, I find this COMPLETELY over the top. It’s terrible that a cop was killed. It’s terrible that it happened when he was not on his guard as he walked into a Dunkin Donuts. But does the entire effing city have to shut down for his funeral?
Some perspective here, please, folks.
I kid you not. Over half the library was unstaffed for over an hour this morning because people could not physically get into work. And this insanity continues even now at the end of the business day.
And I would like to point out that, unfortunately, this sometimes comes with the job of being a cop. Just like it comes with the job of being a soldier or some other occupation which involves carrying a gun and enforcement. Also, the police force are in the public payroll. Does it really make sense to have a policemen’s holiday because of this? What about all the civilians who’ve been killed in Philadelphia alone this year (something like 400)?
I am just awfully sick of how discombobulated this city is under all kinds of circumstances. And this is only days after there was a virtual shutdown of Center City because a bunch of assholes with tiny penises decided to grab some “positive” media attention for themselves by doing their Toys for Tots charity: they shut down the highways with all their motorcycles and noise (and after-market exhausts, thank you very much) with this giant to-do demonstration of driving the fucking toys to the children’s hospital. I don’t know of a single charity that inflicts that kind of noise and traffic (many hours, by the way) for a cause.
In my opinion, they don’t really care about the charity at all: they’re just feeling threatened because they are starting to understand that the citizens are not going to put up with their noise anymore. So they’re grabbing the first media opportunity they can to show they’re “doing good” so no more cities will pass noise ordinances about after-market exhausts on motorcycles. But in fact, they’re not doing too much good by destroying people’s peace and sanity and clogging up their highways.
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November 7, 2007 at 8:12 am (health, performance)
So we are having a Konzert on Friday and Sunday. Anyone in the Philly area should come. It’s at 8 PM on Friday at St. Francis de Sales cathedral in West Philly (47th and Springfield) and at 8 PM on Sunday at the Unitarian church downtown. (Not sure where that is and too tired and sick to look.)
I am sick. It really sucks.
I don’t know how I’m going to get through Sunday, because I work every day except tomorrow all day long (including Saturday and Sunday).
Paul has become obsessed with my Rubik’s cube. And I mean, obsessed.
I want to just go to bed all day long…..
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