Tamed

Song of the Day: Mr. Tinman by Lamppost Revival

I had a dream and I just want to write it down before I forget it.

In the dream, I woke up and it was a really stormy morning. I looked out my window and there was a fox in my backyard, but it was caged up. The cage was tiny, only just big enough for the fox to fit inside. The fox was big, too, the size of a German shepherd. And it was fighting really hard to get out. I couldn't figure out why my mom had trapped it and caged it up. So I ran to the back door and found her in the kitchen, and when she saw me looking outside she looked too and said, "Oh shit, it got out." The fox had managed to get out of the cage but was now struggling against the leash it was on. It was one of those leashes with a chain on the end that tightens when the dog (in this case, fox) strains against it (it was probably that way because that's the kind my dog always had so that's what my brain is familiar with). I could see that it was going to hurt itself so I ran to grab a different leash that was a little longer; I think the idea was that it would struggle less against a leash that let it move around a little. I don't know what made me think I couldn't just let it go. Fear of my mother's retaliation?

So we got out there and obviously the fox wasn't too friendly. It was snapping at me and actually had a lock on my hand at one point, but I managed to get free without hurting it (thinking back, I was pretty deliberate and probably would have hurt its jaw in real life. Dreams are forgiving that way). I slipped the longer leash onto its neck before undoing the previous one. At that point, the need to prioritize efficiency while trying not to hurt it ebbed away, and I just felt sorry for it. I kneeled down and put my arms around it, which was probably a dumb move because it could have easily ripped my face off, but at the time it was so important to me that it knew I cared and didn't want to see it tied up like this. That was the first time in the whole dream that it wasn't fighting or trying to bite me. It sort of bowed its head against my shoulder, the way mellower dogs sometimes will (more active dogs will generally not accept hugs =p ).

It's still bothering me why I didn't let it go. I could have easily taken off the first leash and just let it go. Although I don't know what my mom would have done; maybe she would have hurt it trying to capture it again. I'm guessing it was chained up in the first place for being in her garden. I hope that's where my mind was in the dream, because there is no other excuse for not letting the poor thing go.

I usually can't remember my dreams. But generally when I do, it's in a lot of detail. This one was unique because it was parallel to life in all its details; my house and back yard looked exactly the same, no weird dream-like inconsistencies. Except for the fox being big. But I could really feel everything, too, like when it bit me. And I felt its fur and the grass and the leash.

I've been thinking about foxes a lot lately. I really like them. I think part of the reason I like them so much is because of the fox in The Little Prince. I love his interaction with the Prince. I remember when I first read it I thought, "Ugh, what an old-fashioned idea, that nature WANTS to be tamed by man." But as you go along the fox becomes a device for a much more complicated idea, the idea of what it means to be tamed. "To me, you shall be unique in all the world." I like his story about the hunters, too: since the hunters have specific times when they are hunting and other times when they are in town with the girls, the fox knows exactly when he can enjoy the day without worrying about his safety. And he wants the prince to show up at the same time every day so that for the hour beforehand, the fox can be excited to see him. Which is a very interesting idea.

Why the hell didn't I let him go?

Tie those horses to the post outside / And let those glass doors open wide / And in their surface, see two young savage things / Barely worth remembering. -Damn These Vampires, The Mountain Goats

Bits And Bobs

Song of the Day: Smokey Mountain Lullabye by Tommy Emmanuel

I got two new books today. "The Necromancer" and "The Great Gatsby." The Necromancer is the fourth in a series, the third of which I finished a few hours ago. It left on SUCH a cliffhanger that raised more questions than it answered (one of those awesome endings that leaves you going, "BUT THEN...IS THAT...ARE THEY...SO THEY WEREN'T...BUT HE...SO WAS IT ALL...OHMYGODDDDDD). But I was good and made myself start "The Great Gatsby" so I'll know what John is talking about when the Nerdfighter Blurbing Book Club reconvenes. I don't know when I'm supposed to have finished it.

I don't like it when people say 12-bar blues is overused. It's used so much because it's really fucking pleasant to hear. It works, and the human ear loves it. So that's my two cents on the matter.

I got my tickets for Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 2. So now it's like it's a real thing. And it's going to happen. I don't know if this or the final book caused more freakouts. I think with the book there was all the suspense and wondering what was going to happen and not knowing how it was going to end, and being afraid for the end itself. But there was still this feeling like, "It's not over, there are still movies coming out. There are still things happening, still a future." We had the films to rely on, and the fandom was able to lean on that whether it needed it or not. And now the final film is going to come out. We're going to have to stand on our own two feet and see how long we stay upright. I don't have any doubts that it will keep going. But it's going to feel different. There's going to be a sense of "Now what?" that we haven't had to deal with before, not to this extent. Although there is all this Pottermore business. But with or without whatever that ends up being, I think we'll be okay. Things like this don't just get snuffed out in a day. We've put too much into it to let it go that quickly.

I found some of my old journals (all with the first 20 pages or so filled in, then empty after that). I entertained myself reading through them, remembering how odd Little Emma was, how smart she seemed to think herself. But she wasn't smart. For one thing, she besmirched the pages of a perfectly good Harry Potter journal with sentence after sentence about her stupid 11-year-old crushes. Sigh. Although to be fair, she had to go through that particular one to begin developing her present-day views on the matter. But she didn't have to go and put it in the Potter one.

Finally have my next two tattoos solidified! Actually I've had one for a while, the other finally clunked into place pretty recently. For the time being they're the only ones I want. I'd like to get something Potter-related at some point, but I don't know what or where. I don't get ink that doesn't mean anything to me. I follow a tattoo blog on Tumblr and it astounds me what some people will get on their bodies. "I got this unicorn puking a rainbow just because I felt like it and I absolutely love it!" Sure honey, I'm sure your future employer will love it too. Note: I thoroughly disapprove of people denying employment because of visible tattoos. If they must, I think there should be certain guidelines about subject matter or whatever (example: no swastikas). But...some people just don't seem to get that tattoos will be on your body FOREVER. I get that it's self-expression and it's art and I fully support people being free to do whatever they want with/to/on their bodies, but a little forethought wouldn't kill anyone. Personally, I wait until I have an idea fully formulated and solid, and then I sit on that idea for a while before I get it. I figure if I'm still excited about it after that then I won't mind having it on my body permanently. And if I have a visible work of art on my skin, people are going to ask about it; I can tell anyone exactly why I have the ink I have now and exactly why I'll have my future ones. I can't imagine saying, "Oh, I just...thought it was cute." Okay, that's why you get a cheap dress, not a tattoo. Some people get tattoos that are art for the sake of art, without any personal symbolism behind the design, and I understand that, too. Because you still love the design on a personal level, you still chose that particular piece for a reason. I don't know. I try not to judge people on their own personal decisions about what they do with their bodies and how they express themselves. But that guy at Folklife whose face was literally covered in random dollar signs and shit; what's he going to do?

I have a pretty little leather-bound book where I keep thoughts. Sometimes they're sad, sometimes they're one line of a song I can't write, sometimes they're just the prettiest little thoughts. It's funny because a majority of them are aimed at someone, and going back and reading them I know exactly who each one is for even though they are all just addressed to "you." It's got a cool little latch on the front. I won't show it to anyone. Some of the thoughts are very private, others not so much. But I need one place, just one, where I can put those thoughts and not have to censor them based on who I think might see them. After I die, I don't care who sees it. I'll have nothing to hide then. But nobody will know who any of them are about anyway. They can only guess. Or they can toss the book into the incinerator with me and just know I loved them, and have that be enough.

I'm excited to move because I'll get to reorganize my bookshelf. The base shelf of mine is broken; I don't know if I'll fix it or get a new one. The rest of it works quite nicely. And the family we bought it from at a garage sale apparently had a daughter who was kind enough to cover the sides with Little Mermaid stickers.

I just got distracted looking through my senior yearbook. Just the parts where people signed, not the actual pictures. It's funny how things get repeated (one major example being mentions of my "infectious" laugh...I think they meant "obnoxious"). Also how many people sign your yearbook telling you how great you are. I don't know how much of that stems from the fear that they'll never see you again.

One of my dearest friends is moving into his dorms tomorrow, since he's doing summer term at college. He graduated freaking yesterday and left early this morning. That means that despite being a year younger, he will actually be in college before me -_- Whatever, I'll still be able to drink first. Not that that matters since he goes to BYU =p

Man. The thought of everything I still have to do makes me so tired. I hate money.

Oof. No unifying train of thought this time around. I guess I just had thoughts that needed getting out. Well I've given myself a midnight curfew so I'm off.

Walk on the water - everyone drowns / My mama told me - I'm lost and I'm found / Walk like an angel - take off your shoes / Special occasion - scary and true. -Walk On Water, David Byrne

A Pondering; This It Is, And Nothing More

Song of the Day: The Chain by Ingrid Michaelson

I've been thinking about books today. Especially because Emily came over and we were talking about how we really don't have furniture for our new place. I said "I have a bed and a bookshelf, so I'm set." I've still got books on my mind so I searched "books" on Tumblr and enjoyed drooling over the results for a bit. And every time there was a library with either ladders or spiral staircases, my first thought was, "Want."

In the event that I ever end up in a house instead of an apartment (which, with no husband or children, there's really no need for unless I develop a habit of throwing excellent Christmas parties), I don't have a picture in my head of what it should look like. But I know which bits of it I need.

Item 1: An Attic. I don't mean a maybe-three-foot-high crawlspace of rafters you can't step between, I mean an attic. With creaky floorboards and maybe a couple of teeny windows. Where I can put boxes of the photo albums I've yet to make and my old yearbooks; where my best friends' yet-unborn children can discover those boxes when they go exploring while their mothers and I have coffee. Their kids will ask us about the kids we went to school with, point to photos and say "Is that really you?" They'll ask about certain pictures and their mothers will ask me to save that story for later. They'll love looking through all those dusty boxes because by then I will have become the fascinating and ever-so-slightly-mysterious Aunt Emma.

Item 2: A Library. It doesn't have to be big and grand, and with my budget I really don't expect it to be. But I want a separate room for my books. Ceiling-high shelves with big-ish windows. Maybe a fireplace, too. And in the corner near the window, where there aren't shelves, a piano. A baby grand if possible. Actually, no. The books would deaden the sound. Budget be damned, the piano goes in the living room.

Item 3: A Big-ish and Very Well-lit Kitchen. Painted in light yellows and blues and/or greens that will magnify the natural light. Preferably the window over the sink will look out onto the driveway, so I can see when guests arrive. A small table (where I have my breakfast) is against the far wall under the bigger window by the side/back door. I don't know how I can see the driveway from the same room where my back door is located. Maybe I have a little land and the driveway is on the side of the house. That works, if the kitchen is in the corner of the house. The dog can have a pillow or bed in the corner close to the table; a spirited dog, like a corgi or a border collie. I don't think I'll get another German shepherd, I've already had one perfect one. There's a small television on the counter opposite the sink so I can watch the news in the morning and PBS at night, if there's anything good I don't want to miss while I'm cooking.

Item 4: A Porch. Preferably that spans the front of the house, however big that may be. On summer evenings I'll have friends over and we can play music. When Steph's kids are young I'll sit on the bench swing with them and read them Harry Potter. When they get older we can have coffee and talk about school or whatever they can't talk to their mom about; not that Steph won't be an awesome mom, but if her kids are anything like us, there will be some subjects that they just aren't comfortable discussing with their mother. When Lauren comes over we'll sit out there with wine and talk about how I always wanted a porch; we'll play chess and talk about her gallery opening next week. When I get old I'll sit there in a rocking chair with a bottle of whiskey and a rifle on my lap, just in case the neighbor kids start making trouble.

It seems silly to have all of that for one person. But really, the kids should have some room to play when they come over. And it's not that many rooms. The main/living room (which doesn't have to be all that big, really); my bedroom; the kitchen; the book room. Just four rooms. And I'm a small girl, the rooms don't have to be big. I could buy a hill and make all of this a hobbit hole. That would make the porch tricky though. Just four rooms. Five, if you count the attic. If I won the lottery, that's the house I would buy. Nothing big, I don't want a house where rooms go days without being used. My perfect house isn't fancy, but it's right. I want people who know me to walk in and think, "Yeah, this is Emma's place." And maybe my nieces and nephews and pseudo-nieces and -nephews will draw my house when the teacher tells them to draw their favorite place. They'll come visit me when they're home from college and say how much they missed this place.

I want them to have that place because I have that place. Cam's house. With the cartoon Godzilla rug and creaky stairs and loft that overlooked the living room; the book about the girl and the rabbit that I read every single time; the 5 cats that were named after Shakespeare characters and somehow never made the house smell like cats. The annual Christmas party when I didn't really know anyone but I listened to people say, "Oh, look how big you've gotten!" while I ate the peanut butter blossom cookies she made specifically for me. My Christmases don't feel quite right, not fully complete since Jim died and she stopped throwing the parties. Every year I hope she'll start it up again; but I think she may be out of the habit now. I'm going to call her. I need to see her again. I want to tell her about my life, everything that's changed and all the things that are still the same. I want to hear about her, too; the books she's written, the trips she's taken, if she's baked those cookies since the last party. I want to know if she remembers taking me to the Great Scoop so often that, as a four-year-old, I had a usual. Grilled cheese and then a strawberry-vanilla-swirl soft serve cone. I want to know if she knows how much I remember, and how much she still matters.

This has been a very long post. And it got very heavy very quickly. When I started typing, I didn't expect to end up mentioning Cam. I didn't realize how much I wanted to be like her, influence-wise, until I wrote it about a paragraph ago. Every kid should have an adult outside their family who loves them as much as Cam loved me. Because your family has to love you. And your friends are your age. To have someone older and wiser love you simply because they do is a really unique feeling that I've always taken for granted because I never thought about it before. I was really lucky to have that. And now I have to get up in just under 7 hours, and it usually takes at least one to fall asleep. Good night.

I'm really quite candid and unfiltered when I write, aren't I?

There are places I remember all my life / Though some have changed / Some forever, not for better / Some have gone and some remain / All these places have their moments / With lovers and friends I still can recall / Some are dead and some are living / In my life I've loved them all. -In My Life, The Beatles

What Do I Do Without You?

Song of the Day: Adventures in Solitude by The New Pornographers

I recorded my audition pieces today. They'll arrive at the music department tomorrow. I am not pleased.

I thought I had felt myself improving, like I was really starting to master these pieces. Then we turned on the recording equipment and I slipped back to seventh grade. I made stupid mistakes that I never make while I'm practicing and listening to the playback I was embarrassed at how juvenile and sloppy my tone was. They shouldn't accept me. I wouldn't accept me.

I didn't really want to talk to anyone about it (but I had to say it SOMEWHERE, so here it is) because I knew I would get the automatic response: "Oh, don't put yourself down, you're really good, you're just nervous, bleh bleh bleh." No. That's not it. If the recordings sounded good, I would be really pleased. This goes beyond me being my own worst critic. This is in the realm of me simply not being a good enough musician.

I chose this path because music is my passion. NOT because I displayed a particular talent for it. There is a difference between passion and talent, a difference of which I am PAINFULLY aware. And for a while I've been trying to close the gap between them. Today I realized just how little I've been able to do in that respect. I also chose this career path really late; I didn't start taking private lessons until late in my junior year...I'm up against people who have had private teachers since they were six! What's weird is that everyone around me is under the impression that I've totally got this. And a majority of them have never heard me play solo.

The thing is, once I decided to make music my life, that was kind of it. I feel like I'll be really behind if I have to choose another major. I would probably choose English, with a minor in something religion- or history-related. Which is funny because if I hadn't done music in the first place, I probably would have focused on something else. I'm interested in filmmaking. Maybe I would have stuck with tap dancing (or would I suck at that just as much as I seem to suck at cello?). But my mind can't even really wrap around the idea of not looking at the music world from the inside. Like...what am I supposed to do if they don't take me? What do you do when someone denies you your identity?

I'm going to go start a story. The idea came to me a while ago and I recently heard a song that made me think I could maybe write it down. So I'm going to go map that out and maybe get started on chapter one tonight.

I seriously can't go through the rest of my life without ever having backstage butterflies again.

And the wind began to blow and all the trees began to pant / And the world in its cold way started coming alive / And I stood there like a business man waiting for a train / And I got ready for the future to arrive. -Woke Up New, The Mountain Goats

Have An Awesome Day

Song of the Day: Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show

I've noticed that when applying for both college and work, the main advice that people have is, "Make yourself stand out." When my dad was helping me put together my resume last year, he had me write down everything I had ever done that could conceivably make me look good, whether it was relevant to the job or not (and more often, it wasn't). And teachers and students alike said the same thing about college application essays. "They go through stacks and stacks of essays; make sure that the first sentence of yours makes them pay attention." Then just a few minutes ago, I was replying to an e-mail from the cello professor at my future college (freaking finally) and I spent a few minutes just deciding how to end it. "Should I tell him to have an awesome day? That doesn't sound very professional. But when I met him he seemed like a fairly relaxed guy. It would make an impression either way."

It's annoying to think that way. Every day I have to battle against the compulsion to compare myself to others and do things to impress other people. And then suddenly that's what I NEED to do and my brains kicks into overdrive as it tries to make me stand out without making me sound like I'm desperate and trying really hard to get everyone's attention.

So that's what's bothering me today. I don't like having to MAKE myself stand out and I don't like people telling me to do so. "You're not good enough as you are, you have to PROVE how different you are. Tell them you are EXCEPTIONAL." Okay, so then what happens when they meet me and I'm not? Do I build myself up now and risk looking like a liar and a fake later on? Or do I act true to myself and down-to-earth now and risk getting swallowed up by the crowd? Either way I'm a tad fucked.

I ended up telling him to have an awesome day. Because regardless of how he views it, I genuinely hope he has an awesome day.

All the people in disguise / Hiding from all their insecurities / Learning through the test of time / Of the world's endless possibilities. -Sentiments, Dr. Noise