A reoccuring theme in life

Oh, the silicon valley.

I was forced Monday and yesterday to stop and live in 15 years ago these past two days when I left my ipod at home. I never really stopped and thought about how dependant I was on it until this monday when I sprinted to the light rail and realized I had forgotten, not the ipod itself but the earbuds that make it useful. Of course, being constantly inspired by music, I started to panic thinking about my 6 hour day in my cubicle. So I started prepping myself listening for other music to hear during the day. It was a sunny Monday, and i had just been up a mere 45 minutes, so I was not ready to surrender to another case of the mondays... this monday was going to be different.

So I started hearing the humming of the rail car. The mmmmhmm's from the lady on her phone. the clicking of the nervous student behind me.

I started listening.

Hey this was fun. It was like I had eyes again. What I realized was most of the people I was riding with had their ipods in, and thus, were in their own little world, and I felt like a spy. I was encroaching on their "me" time, and no one knew because they were so wrapped up in their books, ipods, and phones, doing their best efforts to not look at anything other than the electronic they held.

Entertained by my new game, I lept off the train and started listening more. The street cleaning noise whirred, the leaves on the sidewalk (sidenote: where DO those leaves come from in downtown? it's all structure!), The clomping of the a woman's "big girl" shoes as she hurried down second street. Enamoured with my urban soundtrack, I soon heard something familiar and out of place...

Was that.... was that a flute?

And as I rounded the corner there it was. A man with a backpack stood leaning up against a lamp post with a backpack and a flute. And he was playing his soul. It was slow and loud, and he played with his eyes closed. What IS it about live musicians with there eyes closed? Ah, yes, it means they are playing for themselves... which can be great and not at the same time. You can be there or not, but they are gonna wail this flute anyway! And as I appoarched him, I wished I could help him out in someway other than a smile and a head nod as I hurried to work. I wished I could have put my backpack down and had an improve session right then with him to show my appreciation. But i could not. I looked around to see if anyone else was appreciating it the way I was!

Of course not. Too wrapped up in their top 40. In their blackberries.

::sigh:: I was only grateful I had not been that today... And yet after the events of Saturdays gig I was sad that I was not able to give him the attention he deserved. And I kept walking.

Sometimes I wonder how well i would do if I attempted to cut the distractions out of my life. And than I find I rediscover a new band and get zapped back into the rat race.

Now, if you'll excuse me, there is some studying to be done with my new acapellla cd i just bought off itunes....

Something to believe in and Contact improve

I have recently been rediscovering what it is like to live in the here and now. After a long jounrey of living everywhere EXCPET now, I was finally introduced to Contact Improve by Scott Wells at my university, and the things i learned in his class about dance and life I plan on taking with me everywhere I go. This is relevant because of the way our society works.

This weekend my band played a fund raiser event. It. Was. Rough. Not because we were unprepared. I, in fact, give MAJOR kudos to the people who tried to organize and plan it, but the crowd must have missed it was a concert, because when I got up to perform, I felt more like I was at a golf course than a concert. We were getting nothing... and these poor suckers had paid MONEY to sit and look like I was killing them softly. And in turn, if you read my previous blog, this was really just bringing MY energy down and back into this awful funk of limbo I have been feeling for weeks, and apathy was rearing its ugly head at me....

Because of the outside venue, just about anyone could wander along to hear us... and that is exactly what happened. Out of nowhere, came a homeless man and sat nearby, and it wasn't more than two minutes that he sat before he jumped up, came within feet of microphone...... and Danced.

He. danced.

In that moment, this man who had nothing but the cart he had wheeled to our site, was happy enough to dance.

And guess what... people, these people who paid money, were LAUGHING at him.

Now, maybe I am biased because I have been studying dance for longer than anyone there, but there is a Japanese proverb that says, "We are fools whether we dance or not, so we might as well dance."when I go to a concert, and I have to pay my hard earned money that I make at a less-than- fun job to go to a fundraiser, a concert, or anything, I am gonna get my monies worth. And this man, was satisfying his need to express an appreciation to us for bringing him this joy to his day... So he danced.

And suddenly, my grey cloud lifted from my head, and the whole band's energy seemed to swing upward, because FINALLY, it was like we weren't just playing for ourselves anymore.

And yes, you could argue that my peers were laughing because they were uncomfortable... but you could also argue they were laughing because they were ignorant.

I am HOPING it was the former.

BAD BLOGGER

Oh heck, one day I will remember to update this on a regular enough basis that I will have regular followers....

So, I am sitting in a place that I know as "the black pit of despair" trying to rearrange my life in a way that is fitting to "Life after college".

I think I have finally figured out WHY I used to pile on all the work in the world in order to fill my time (other than it made good money).... I didn't have to THINK about the future! I would book myself so far in advance that I had to live in the present so that I didn't have to plan (or I had to plan so meticulously that all I could think about was the process). Well, it just won't work anymore, its time to face the music. As a part-time student and part-time worker I feel like I am sitting in a bad musical dance montage: "Too young to take over/ too old to ignore/ Gee, I'm almost ready/ but, what for?" (P.S. you get nerd points if you can name that musical). My super parent recently sent me a youtube clip of one of my peers I went to school with for 12 years. But it wasn't just that, it was the girl that lead the judgement and ridicule of my junior high career... and the video clip was of her great success she was coming into at our age... No one can make me feel like crap the way my parents can....

In other news, the VTA accepted my proposal, but they said don't contact us until January for anything. So... now I guess I should start contacting the city as we are 12 weeks from January. If everything goes according to plan, the Govenator will be signing my diploma and I will be on my way out of here and into real life before I know it... ::Sigh:: if only I knew what that entailed. Nervous and Scared are the words of the day... but for now I will read for my anthropology class. Blah.