Contingent though I may be, today I took an online course about protecting confidential information from thieving jerks. It seems that the exemplary employee is, unfortunately, a total d-bag. The dialogs (assisted by wonderfully awkward photos of poorly coiffed actors) went something like this:

Hey, Greg! That was a great marketing meeting. I'm starving! Want to go get some lunch?

Sure, Bridget! Let's go.

Aren't you going to put those client files away?

We're just going around the corner. I'm sure it will be fine.

Those files have confidential information, Greg. You know as well as I do that it's our company policy to lock things up.

You're right, Bridget. Let me just lock these in my file cabinet, and then we can go to lunch.

So perhaps I'll claw my way to the top of that itchy corporate hemp ladder by chastising my coworkers at every opportunity. Worth a try!

Good Church

This morning, some Episcopalians purchased a couple of high Cs from me, which I happily supplied. It was delightful, actually. There was an older woman in the tenor section and a giant wad of tissues in the pocket of my borrowed cassock. The good church things. A little gem from the sermon that I want to pass on and remember: someone asked a rabbi why it says in the Torah, "write these words upon your heart." Why should we not keep the words inside of our hearts? The rabbi replied that our hearts are closed. Our hearts are not open enough to let the words in. But we place the words on the surface, and when the heart breaks, the words fall in.

There were two little altar girls on either side of the steps, offering assistance with their little hands to help people up for communion. It was good church today.

In other news, I sang backup at the Pride Center for my buddy Bronwen, and that was fun. Her stuff is wonderfully personal and good, and it's nice to surrender myself to someone else's vision for a change.

Can you hear a lark in any other part of town?

Two things happened this week. I found the apartment of my dreams, which also happened to be within my budget. Then, someone else was chosen to dwell there. This has been more jarring than I could have imagined, mainly because the place had every particular which I had formerly written in my little book of hopes and dreams, right down to the gas stove (also balcony, hardwood floor, fireplace, high ceiling with fan, air conditioner, roomy kitchen, etc etc...) I believe that I might actually have created this apartment by force of will. So why was my will not strong enough to seal the damn deal? AUGH!

And the thing is, I still love the place, even though it shan't be my own. I ride past it on my way home from work, mooning over it, sending it my best wishes. I kind of want to live near it, even if I can't live in it, although I just can't think of looking at another apartment so soon. I think it loves me too, and the landlords are cruel to separate us this way.

What happened today

This morning, the foothills were grey and green. Then the clouds formed a broody curtain to conceal them, as a massive swarm of cold white bees came and wheedled at our windows, trying to find entrance. Then the clouds lifted the curtain, revealing the newly whitened foothills.

In other news, the copy machine (on double-sided setting) makes the most intellectually challenging rhythmic textures I've ever heard.

Fees. I have a window here, where today I observe the stormy foothills and imagine Catherine and Heathcliff running through the grasses: hems soaked and filthy, locks of damp black hair clinging to flushed cheeks. Lord, it is boring in fees.

I have been riding around on the bike Betsy gave me. I like how my heart feels when I ride it and my blood feels hotter in me somehow. Last night I was coming home from an opera chorus rehearsal, and the air felt almost as soft as a summer night. I noticed this at a stop light. A truck pulled up near me, and it smelled old and greasy, but it smelled good. I polished my glossy new bell with the palm of my hand.

Stank Gets In Your Eyes

The no-smoking-even-in-bars law is not all that great, and the reason why is this: Hipsters smell absolutely dreadful in close quarters! Especially when crammed cheek by jowl in an effort to more closely see or hear the waify temerity of some cutie-pie hipster band. They smell like beery perspiration, which is what you'd expect, I suppose, only I never knew it before because of the cigarette smoke.

Rosebud!

When I was in the fifth grade at Wasatch Elementary, I sang "Lullaby of Broadway" in the talent show. As I recall, Mrs. Farman (one of my favorite instructors of all time) was on the keys and I was in a gold hat, seated on top of the piano. Today I went to a rummage sale at the school and bought that piano.

Last night, mom and I went to feast our eyes upon the Treasures of the Ballet Russe. The Polovetsian conquerers leapt and their Persian slaves whirled, rife with the sweet innocence of the ballet, where you don't have to think about the meaning of slavery and conquest, of the slaves being ravished or forced to milk the goats, where they all simply dance, are gently lifted by the virile Russian swain. And certainly no worries about how the Russian wives feel, only that there exist two generae of beauties: the wholesome Betties, who leap like men and probably know how to fix a plow, and the diaphanous Veronicas, trilling and exotic. And of course no body odor of any kind in all the prehistoric, velvet-clad Baltics. That is why I love the ballet. Because even I can, for a moment, stand starry-eyed...which I hear is a danger in paradise.

Night-before-last, I attended a lush gala performance in honor of Doug Wolf's 30th year as director of the U's percussion ensemble. Colorful baloons with long strings were tied to the music stands, and they hovered and danced like a banner above the stage. My favorite moment was during the high school ensemble's rendition of "Nessun dorma" from Turandot. There was this kid with floppy red hair and gangley limbs sitting at the drum kit in the back, and it was he who struck the climactic gong...which overpowered the army of marimbas and, indeed, all of the senses combined.