Broke.n

Hard drive failure with our laptop! I'm at the library. I'll be back within the week, hopefully!

Music and sanity

I wake up today and stumble to turn on the radio, just like every morning. I hear reggae playing. Instead of turning it, because i don't really care for it, I leave it. I have in past weeks trained myself to be happy when I hear reggae. When the Positive Vibrations show is on it means that its Saturday. I work every Saturday. But it is also the one day I look forward going to work. All of my favorite people close. So if you think of me between 4pm and midnight tonight, I will probably be giggling, just like I do every Saturday night.

I haven't been cooking lately, and it has been a bummer. Something I have been doing, however. Is eating a lot of Italian Tomato Soup. Sounds good, right? It's heated up plain spaghetti sauce dressed up with fake sausage, oregano, and parmeasan. I definitely eat wheat, but I try to avoid putting the bad kind sin my body. So, who needs pasta when you can have Italian Tomato Soup?

Orchestra! So, apparently I put a lot more pressure on myself than was necessary (what else is new - I'm a Virgo - I can't help it). Because the conductor (Dr. Hanson) asked me what section I wanted to be in. Hah. So I am going to start in second violin for a two concerts, and then switch if I want to. I think that will be good because I have to get used to reading music in general again. We sight read all of the pieces the first night and, WOW. I am horrible at sight reading. I have been so out of practice from not reading music. But I have been practicing A LOT, so I am confident it will return with time. Thanks to everyone who sent encouraging text messages and emails the day of! That was really sweet.

So, orchestra was Thursday. Friday (yesterday) I practiced with a quartet for the first time. I like it because it will be something fun that doesn't require a lot of my attention. And also because the other violinist has a power trip problem and isn't as good as me, so that kind of feels good too. I don't like it because I am the most talented in the group. I would prefer to be on the other side of that - the least talented in the group only because I know what a hard worker I am, and I can count on myself to do the work, but not other people. Anyways, I'll stop being snobby and end with, I am ultimately quite excited to be in both of these musical groups. It feels so right doing this again.

I rode my bike to Caitlin's (the cellist) place with my violin on my back. She lives on the other side of the hill, so its not too far, but a lot of uphill. Man, I need to find a way to comfortably carry that on my back. I hate relying on public transportation, and I love riding my bike. We have a friend up here who is really into leather work, and they are going to help me make a sweet strap system.

Our house should really be named The Hostel. I am trying to think how far back we have had guests without a break, and I can't. Right now Drew and his friend are here from Portland til Tuesday. A couple days ago Jessica Gantos (she lives in a suburb outside of Portland but is from Temecula I think) was here. Mikey tried to stay here last minute (he lives in Portland) but we said no. It was when Jessica was here. Also, in the past ten days Kendall (leather friend) has stayed here three different nights. Oh and last night Nolan's coworker Andy stayed here.

As long as I can have the bedroom, I will stay sane.

Less Stress

Some bullet points, none having to do with the other:

I was pretty high strung this morning about the audition tonight, but I have mellowed out considerably in the past hour and a half or so. Needless to say Nolan is amazing.

I changed/am still changing my part over to the other side and am learning how crazy hair follicles are.

I am finally practicing with a quartet tomorrow for the first time.

I think I am almost back to where I was talent-wise on violin. Sometimes it feels like I am better than where I was at 5 years ago.

I have been asking people that seem funny and nice to be my friend. Needless to say, I have made a lot of friends lately. When did that become something that wasn't cool? I would be thrilled if someone asked me to be their friend.

My schedule for practicing is 15-20 minutes every hour, at the change of the hour. and then 40 to 45 minutes of whatever I want to do. I feel very prepared, I just don't want to have any excuses as to why I didn't make it, or didn't do well in the audition. Excuses are annoying.

I sent out 5 packages two days ago. To family. Let me know when you get it (you should have it today or tomorrow).

I am interested in eating an enormous vegetarian greasy meal today. Maybe I will go to Hillside Quickie on one of my breaks. Maybe I can drag Daniel along.

Cool. Time to practice.

Stress, weird.

So my audition for the Thalia Symphony is on Thursday night. And basically I am writing to say that I am definitely not blogging until that is over.

I am stressed out for this audition. I feel super confident about my piece and then I played for Nolan and totally clammed up. I don't understand myself. So I am forcing myself to play in front of all of my housemates. A lot. Until they ask me to stop. I don't know how else to fix it.

I am stressed out and it reminds me of being in school. Deadlines.

Aye!

My girls

So since I became obsessed with the Miike Snow song I posted last week, I have been kind of crazed. I am making the perfect Amy Cotlow mix CD. This is my compilation:

Ok, nevermind. Apparently I can't copy and paste into blogger. Lame. I don't have an order yet, but once I do, I will post it.

On Thursday, Daniel and I went to a Seahawks preseason game v. the Raiders. Here's the story behind us being into football...

So last year when Nolan, Aaron and I lived in Portland together, Daniel came down once a month on average, and we went to Seattle about the same. Once when Daniel came down (a sunny September weekend) Nolan was working and Aaron had scouted out a San Diego Chargers bar in Portland: Claudia's. Daniel and I tagged along because we didn't really have that much going on. It was a beautiful sight. Daniel and I were completely clueless. Strangers high fiving, bumping chests, buying each other drinks, and yelling at a television screen.

Daniel and I decided that this was something we definitely wanted to be in on. So we went online and looked at all the NFL teams. We didn't know about AFC and NFC, but that didn't matter. We each picked ten teams based on team colors, mascot, location - you know - things that matter. And whatever avereaged out to be the highest on both of our lists (if anything) would be our team. Well Minnesota Vikings was 4 on his list, and 2 on mine. We were told that we had to have both an AFC and an NFC team, Vikings are top, Buffalo Bills are second.

It didn't take much convincing to get Nolan in on it, too. So the three of us have been Vikings fans for one year.

Anyhow, I have grown up going to Arizona Cardinals games. I don't remember them fondly, but my dad tells me that I loved it. However, Daniel has never been to a football game. Ever! One of our managers moved to Olympia and was selling his preseason tickets to work folk, and we bought the one against the Raiders. Oh, we also have teams that we hate. These include: the Browns, Raiders, Texans, and the Cowboys.

I took pictures to document Daniel's First Football Game extravaganza. About 30 of them of of us just taking pictures of our faces. Thats fine, I'll still include them.

1. Garden cucumber and tomato (finally!!) and onion for our tailgate dogs.

2. Since we don't have a car, and live 20 blocks up the Jackson from the stadium, we just biked there, and "tail gated here". I also call this, the loneliest corner in Seattle.

3. We brought beer but didn't think about cups or public drinking. They were giving out free AMP energy drinks, so we drank that and poured beer into it. Ridiculous.

4. Dogz n Beerz

5. Game!

6. The stadium ran out of ketchup, good thing we had mustard in out backpacks!

7. AmyandDanielfunohwow!

8. Stadium ish shot.

Anyways, sorry the captions are way down here.

My new obsession is Animal Collective "My Girls"

I spent 200 dollars on online clothes shopping today. For my birthday. Well, I got 175 dollars and family birthday money, so it was basically that.

Oh yeah, my birthday is Tuesday! I have the day off and have no idea what I am going to do. I want to play outside, but I think it is fall now. Which means rain. Which means probably no parks. Or maybe I can have a rainy picnic. That would be amazing, actually.

I accidentally lost weight. I am going to guess 8 or 9 pounds.

Overrrr.