Whiplash update

The brief disjointed semi-clinical version because it's difficult to appropriately react to the good things and the bad things in the same confined space in any kind of meaningful way and can't work out writing four separate whiplash entries:

MSO concerts (performing Verdi's Requiem) were this weekend, fantastic - Friday night was amazing. Chris said best MSO concert he's ever seen. Other MSO folk thought Saturday was somehow even better; I felt like I wasn't as good, and am persisting let down, but that may be the lack of St. John's Wort talking.

Still haven't heard back about the second ultrasound, yet (plan to ask about going back on the St. John's Wort then). Would really like to know soon.

Allergies are death.

Hands/wrists/forearms have stopped working; awful persistent pain with.. well.. any use. Limiting typing and computer work as much as possible. Also can't knit, crochet, wind yarn, hold needles for sewing, hold pencils for any length, play guitar or ukulele, or hold a book - can't grip anything for any length - not sure what options this leaves me for any activity at all. (What doesn't use your hands?) Hours on end of point-and-click computer work and knitting bingeing appear to have been the proximate triggers. Keep testing to see if I can start again and inevitably fail in flames. Then had to hold the heavy Verdi score in untenable hand position for the 4 hour Thurs. rehearsal, the 2 hr Fri dress, the 2 hr Fri concert, and the 2 hr Sat concert. Yesterday had trouble holding a water glass without spilling it on myself, or holding my fork long enough to eat my dinner. Yes: having to take breaks while eating. Had to get a brace for the score-holding, but am indeed going to the doctor to see how to deal with/fix/cope with this. Absolutely miserable.

Considering going out and buying a hard back, to see if I can kind of pin it open with a cookbook holder to read. REALLY don't want to spend the next week of my life with TV and cleaning* as my only solo activities. (*Failed at the attempt at dusting/scrubbing, too; broke a favorite old ceramic I'd made.) Plus, will have to work, not many options to not. Can't really work without aggravating, though. May still risk knitting night because I'm going crazy, but we'll see.

Did have a good Modesto/Turlock experience Fri/Sat - hit three different farmers markets and kinda' was able to pretend these are walking cities, rather than commuter cities. Felt a little better. Saw an absurd number of people I recognize, for this area, felt a little less disconnected from it.

SF went well; got there and back w/out a hitch, events were awesome, had some good San Francisco Experiences and good walking and wandering, even if some of it was in dispiriting pursuit of wifi or after taking the absolutely wrong BART stop for my frivolity. Loved the trip; hate traveling without Chris. The two bettas I got the Saturday before leaving died the Wednesday I left. They didn't have names yet. Think their demise is my fault.

One of mom's cats--a sweetie goof named Biscuit--has gone missing, been gone for two weeks.

Albert is dead. Tried tree guy at nursery, emergency surgery, emergency repot, but failed utterly. I'm so sorry.

Love--

JCS; Makala

TED FUCKING NEELEY - TONIGHT. In frickin' Modesto. Jesus Christ Superstar here we come!!!!!

Also: ukelele! <3 <3 <3 <3 <3

This is my day. This is a good day.

Music and Arts demonstration; student rally

Bless our students at CSU Stanislaus. The arts know how to put on a fucking protest.

This carol came after about an hour of gorgeous, mournful, and sometimes seasonal music from the Chamber Singers (slated to be cut next year) and the Wind Ensemble (slated to be cut next year). Wore all black. Marching in and out, and in between songs, they were silent.

Chris said: "They're holding their own wake."

There is hardly a more beautiful sound in the world than this ensemble singing, and next year, if our cuts roll on, it won't be.



Definitely encourage you to listen/watch. Earlier on in their performance, lyrics included "Fare thee well, my own true love..." and "I am tired, I am weak, I am worn... Take my hand... lead me home," and other sounds of loss and homesickness - music is these students' lives, this school and these programs are their home. I wept like a baby.



Less heart-breaking and amazingly optimistic, here, is Chris (the eternal pessimist). The day before the arts demonstration, there was a huge walkout, rally, and march (couple hundred students), most of the speakers for which are posted online, too. So if you want to see my hot honey being a rabble-rouser, you can here, starting at 3:56. (He is also wearing the first thing I ever knit, that rainbowy scarf.)



(At 6:54, you he's moved just off screen, but you can see three of his students running through to blindside group hug him, which made my day. <3)

Assortment of things

CSN were wonderful! Can't seem to make myself write about it. Don't feel like I need to - but here is what they played:

Helplessly Hoping
Wasted on the Way
Ruby Tuesday (Rolling Stones)
You Can Close Your Eyes (James Taylor)
Girl from the North Country (Bob Dylan)
Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers)
Guinnevere
Dream For Him (David Crosby)
In Your Name (Graham Nash)
Uncle John's Band (Grateful Dead)
Our House
Southern Cross

(break)

Love the One You're With (Stephen Stills)
Marrakesh Express
Rock & Roll Woman (Buffalo Springfield)
Long Time Gone
Just a Song Before I Go
Cathedral
Bluebird Revisited
Wooden Ships

Encore:
For What It's Worth (which is "Stop, Hey, What's that Sound..." if you, like me, can never remember the title) (Buffalo Springfield)
Teach Your Children

Replete with sing-alongs! Fucking awesome tracklist. No Suite Judy Blue Eyes or Almost Cut My Hair, but Crosby had a serious sore throat so I don't expect them to get their really-high-stuff on. AMAZED they did Deja Vu and Cathedral, and they were stunning. They did a lot of covers--they're talking about releasing an album of them, which I would be SO all over. <3

LOVED IT. Had a lovely birthday. Spending too much time online, right now, instead of working. I should at least be writing, if I'm going to shirk my duties. But instead, I'm stealing things from other blogs. Since it was just the day, after all, I followed a link to an astrology-y birthday profiler linked and found my birthday. Which is fairly spookily accurate, as these things can be (in the same way they can be utterly divorced from reality).

Highlights:
The Day of Restless Drive

restless drive to begin all sorts of new projects. Usually they bring the one they are working on to completion but immediately set out on a new one without rest.
capable of handling several projects at the same time
low boredom threshold
outgoing and dynamic types at one time, and solitary and unapproachable at another.
tend to oscillate
Whether in a broad social context or on a personal level, the issues and ideas with which those born on this day are most often involve fairness and equality – in general, matters pertaining to the delegation and exercise of power. In putting forth their arguments, they can be very ironic... Their humor, however, is not for everyone as it is liable to be off-beat, sardonic, and perhaps even macabre.

can display a disturbing lack of stability. Although they may be involved in quite respectable professions, one often gets the idea that the profession itself, or whatever work they do in general, lends the consistency their lives so desperately need
can be at risk when their restless nature brings them into conflict with the powers that be.
think for themselves and will not tolerate others...trying to tell them what to do

warm heart
may find it difficult to open all the way
few friends whom they allow [close]
can often have a greater effect on those around them than they realize, and indeed can register a high degree of shock value
should seek to be more aware of their effect on others

must beware of the depressive effects of isolation
taste in food tends to the exotic, they must be attentive to the effects of spicy, unusual, or rich foods on their body


...And if you take me as already following the must-do's/must-be-aware-of's they give additionally, to a fault? i.e. paranoid about my affect on and reception by others? And trying to exercise absolute patience towards others when they don't behave the way I think would be Better For Them? Seriously, baby.

(It's all about being an equinox/cusp baby, I bet. I am the pendulum.)

Which reminds me: Happy Equinox! (A day late, anyway.) Enjoy autumn! Though I know some of you are already probably under heaps of snow and rain. We're, alternately, still lingering around 100˚F, after only a brief reprieve.

I should really be working. Writing. Something.

But, but, it's Celebrate Bisexuality day, too, apparently! (To echo friend who brought it to my attention: We have a day?!) Via BiNet:

"The day is an opportunity for bisexual, fluid, pansexual and generally queer-identified people and their families, friends and supporters to recognize and celebrate their history, community and culture and the contributions bisexual/pansexual people have made to both the greater LGBT Community as well as to mainstream culture."

Well! Wow! Pan-pride, baby!

Okay, okay, NOW to work. LOVE!

CSN CSN CSN!!

Crosby, Stills & Nash, tonight, at Ironstone Vineyards!

If you do not already know and love CSN/CSN&Y, well... well, you should.

Maybe you know them from their other projects. David Crosby was a member of the Byrds, Stephen Stills was a member of Manassas, Graham Nash was a member of the Hollies, and Neil Young worked with Crazy Horse, in addition to being Neil Young (he, however, will not be there tonight).

Or you may know them, without knowing you know them. If you ever listen to Oldies/Classic rock stations on the radio, you have probably heard plenty of "Teach Your Children," and "Our House," those sweet and earnest numbers. But maybe you've heard "Carry On/Questions," "Long Time Gone," or Joni Mitchell's "Woodstock" (And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden...). Different stations pick a different one or two and only rotate those, alas.

"Suite Judy Blue Eyes"? (It's getting to the point where I'm no fun anymore...)
Almost Cut My Hair"? (from whence Lettin' my freak-flag fly)
Stephen Stills' "Love the One You're With"? Graham Nash's (I get the) "Urge for Going"? "Chicago"? (We can change the world...) Maybe "Just a Song Before I Go"? "Southern Cross," "Wasted on the Way"...?

Or maybe you know them. Maybe, like me, you love on "Military Madness," "Prison Song," "Deja Vu," "Guinnevere," "Horses Through a Rainstorm," their cover of "Blackbird," Manassas' "Johnny's Garden," "Marrakesh Express," "Helplessly Hoping," "Lady of the Island," "Laughing"...


...CSN(Y) is one of my favorite groups ever. Of all time. I was reared on them, and several years ago a lot of my family and I went to see them, and they played many of the above, and many not of the above. Graham Nash was barefoot. Stephen Stills went from rough voice and hard-to-make-out words in his new songs to perfect, crisp "Southern Cross" like it hadn't been thirty years. David Crosby joked about how it hurt to sing "Almost Cut My Hair," now that they're balding. I'm guessing he'll make the same joke, again. I wonder if they'll still play "Military Madness," and work up a chant in the crowd, like they did in LA. I wonder if we'll get another contact high (outdoor arena, after all). I wonder how they'll have changed, and how they'll have not.

I feel so, so warm and fuzzy.

Oh! I have to go! Enjoy the links if you follow 'em! Well worth the listen!

Show; campus

It's weird to think of it this way, but I was having a similar reaction to opening night of Crazy For You to the one I had at the end of doing Beethoven's 9th Symphony. Giddy tears and trembling excitement, and a whole lot of greedy, basking love for the audience and its standing ovation. Even if I was down in the pit. I could still crane 'round and see them.

(Btw, they moved us from backstage to down in the pit with the orchestra, mic'd. Which is a great thing. Besides, I like calling myself a "pit singer" more than a "backstage singer." I'm also defaulting to Backup Girl.)

The show was fantastic. It was a blast. A whirling, frantic putting-together, and a beautiful opening night. The theater has more than its fair share of technical difficulties, and some things blew up at the last minute--missing actors, breaking props--but they still got it off in great order. Everybody stepped up and were brilliant. I've said this before, but I've never really been much for dance shows (I can take a lot of Fosse, but chorus lines and follies have never thrilled), but I sat in awe of this group. These girls are professional quality dancers (there's a 15 y.o. teaching dance classes already, and a girl who just got accepted into the Rockettes, for instance), and they're stunning. The choreography and acrobatics were gorgeous, huge, clever, funny, delightful. There's a bit where the girls are bells, if that makes any sense, and a pinwheel, and and and...

I love it. I'm in love. I'm giddy. I even got over enough of my crisis-level shyness to go with my carpool mates to the cast party, and chat and be silly and play games in the pool. The acting was great, the comedy was spot on (even the cheesy parts - and the physical comedy was PERFECT), the music was grand, and, if I do say so myself, the singing went well. Giddy giddy giddy!

...

Well, be fair; I was giddy. The budget crisis has taken its toll. Chris is a union rep for our campus, for contingent lecturers (think: the college faculty equivalent of highly vulnerable wage slaves, with next to no protections, who make up the majority and do most of the work; the adage is that every lecturer is fifteen seconds from utter humiliation). There's been a slash-and-burn going on, and a lot of people are up in the air, and we spent the morning with a handful of lecturers who've been on tenterhooks and probably let go from the university-but-not-necessarily-completely, trying to hash out their rights and contracts and potential outcomes--the culmination of which was a last minute email (received by one of them by iPhone) with the nail in the coffin for all of them. Their small hope was a false one; they have no work, and no rehiring rights, and no continued affiliation with the university or the committees they man, this Fall. Which is to say, in a week and a half. They have no health insurance, they will not be getting a check this month. They're not even at the top of the rehire-if-we-get-some-money list. They have to give back their keys, and clear out their offices. This week.

These are people we know. Our campus, with its 400 faculty, has lost 187--no, wait.. now it's 192, after this morning, isn't it?--of its faculty. Cut in half. Everyone the university could cut without declaring an official layoff, they cut. Fellow lecturer reps from other campuses are working with the union through the summer, even though their teaching jobs are no longer waiting for them in Fall. These are dedicated, passionate teachers, and most of the people we were with today graduated from this campus, went through the very programs they're teaching in, worked most intensively with the most vulnerable students, in the most fundamental classes.

And they're just... gone, now.

(This doesn't even get into the issue of the hundreds of classes cut on our campus alone--classes that were full, and whose students have not even been informed of the cuts and schedule changes and who will most likely get to campus on day one with no idea their classes and teachers are gone and that several of their class days will be furloughed &c, but who have been pulled for an extra $500 for this semester, or $1000 for the year, already. Or all the students who just aren't going to be accepted at all, come Spring and next year, despite state law dictating that this system accept all eligible students. And all the basic remedial classes the bulk of new students will need to complete in their first year to be kept on at the university, but which will be unavailable to them, since they've been cut. And--)

...Sorry for the whiplash. That kinda' where we're at, right now.

I think we're going to spend some of my blood on Julie&Julia (...I can get comp movie tickets, with all the blood donations I've racked up), try to get something a little joyful going.

Love, all.