Day Ninety Five

Moving the chimes blows. I took this because I was surprised to see that yes, four people can carry the chimes up those narrow ass steps outside Fisher. This move was for the IUP junior high honors band concert.

Day Ninety Four

Posting this because I've spent most of tonight watching youtube clips of peoples' final performances on Broadway. This one is especially close to my heart (Joey McIntyre and Idina Menzel's last performance in Wicked) because I was there :) Definitely one of the best nights of my life. 

Day Ninety Three

Good thing he's still got this office since the ceiling of the one downstairs collapsed today! Sorry it's blurry, I took it while I was walking. It says "Dr. Jack Stamp." Only took four years for Cogswell to regress. 

Day Ninety Two

I went to the health center today because I'm not feeling well. You can imagine my disappointment when I walked up and found this instead. 

Day Ninety One

What I did on my spring break - a reflection.

What did I do? Drove, mostly. I spent Saturday teaching Johnstown and fixating on weird late 80s early 90s anti drug propaganda. I'd planned to go home that night but was way too tired at the end of the day. I went back to IUP, slept it off, then left first thing Sunday morning. Thank. God.

Got to Mom's around dinner time. The dogs lost it and ran out front to say hi as soon as I got there. I'm reminded of the times I'd fall asleep on the couch downstairs waiting for Mom to bring Amy home from the airport :) We watched "Taking Chance" which is one of the biggest tear jerkers I've ever seen. Trying to explain the movie to my Grandmom made me feel like a wimp but wow, if you've seen it you know... geez. So sad. Anyway, after that we had cheese steaks. And I just realized half of said cheese steak is still sitting in the fridge. At my Mom's house. Boo. 

Monday I had plans to see an allergist then spend time with the Bechtels but it wasn't happening. When I left IUP on Sunday it was 45 and sunny (which is like 70 anywhere else). As I got close enough to Philly to pick up the local stations, I found out the east coast was expecting a freak snow storm over night. My Dad called to warn me and joked that I brought the bad weather with me. Overall from what I saw we got around 8 inches. Poor Oscar is not a snow dog. Abby however was having a blast. The allergist wasn't in his office because of the weather, but when I finally did get a hold of someone, I found out it didn't matter. The allergy test I have to take requires you to be off any allergy drug with an antihistamine for at least 7 days beforehand. And it takes 3 visits to finish the test. I had rehearsal on Thursday so it wasn't happening. I'd just get it done out here but no one takes my Philadelphia health insurance. Darn it Western PA. 

Tuesday I went down to Chichester and had dinner with my Grandmom, Vern, Dad, and Robin. I'm really glad they were able to get together. My Dad and Robin live an hour south of Chichester, and I know she likes having people over but I can't help but feel like I'm imposing on my Grandmom having her make dinner for three extra people. Rob's back has been bothering her a lot lately so two hours in the car is a big deal. I'm really glad we all got to see each other though. I get so homesick. I stayed until past 8pm just rambling on with them. 

Wednesday? Try to guess...

Can you see her? Look at the center, in the distance...

What's that in front of the mini van?

Oh, hey.

Yeah I went up and saw him. You know how women have that hormone that makes them forget all the terrible stuff from being pregnant, so later on they want to have more kids? I believe there is a similar hormone dwelling in those who rarely visit new york but live close enough to drive there. The drive should only take about two hours. Then you leave jersey and realize the disaster you've gotten yourself into. Did I mention this was around 3:30 on a weekday? The last six miles of the trip took an hour and a half. I began to hate my impulses and question my judgement. Until I saw that face. I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, it had been worth the trip...

Until I saw this sign...

Be sure to take note of the extreme sun glare, and remember that I was driving west. You can't read it because of the sun, which was punishing me for what felt like hours, but this sign reads "Welcome to MANHATTAN." 

My face read, "Oh shit." 

I left Wengert's at 4:30. On a weekday. Then drove through Manhattan. To get out of new york. And into new jersey. I know someone is reading this right now and cringing. Can I get a hell yeah? I no longer questioned my judgement. I knew, with a very deep and powerful confidence, that I was a fucking moron. I love my gps to death but I wish it knew to avoid high traffic areas. Like the entire tri-state area. I could have tap danced off of that island faster. It took over two hours to get from Brooklyn to the Holland tunnel. The entire way I was trying my best not to cry. I felt so guilty for cutting my aready limited family time short. My trips home have become more stress than break because I just don't have enough time to see everyone I want to see. I wind up cutting it short with almost everyone I do get to see, or flat out not seeing people at all. I feel terrible. I hope my friends and family know that I am trying and I hate letting them down... 

Chris and I wound up lost here the first time we went into the city together. If you look at the white sign with red lettering, you can see it translated to "CHAMP". I remember trying to get a picture of it to send to Andrew as Wengert frantically searched his hand held map of new york city. I could see the frustration and panic building in his face. Did I mention this is about a five minute drive from his front door in Brooklyn? We wound up here after about 45 minutes on the train. 

The drive to IUP from the new york area is depressing. It isn't very well lit, and for most of the trip you feel like you're driving through someone's back yard the entire time. I spent about one and a half of the seven hours it took to get back to IUP crying and feeling sorry for myself. I didn't want to leave home. I didn't get to say goodbye to my Mom. I already missed my dogs. I kept thinking about my grandmother being on insulin and my dad losing weight (which is good for him and he's doing it in a healthy way but still scary) and robin's back. I didn't even get to see my sister or any of my friends and I still felt like I spent the entire break in my car. But at least I wasn't this guy...

Oh shit, that car's on fire. The car was empty and I was at a traffic light, but I still felt like a creeper taking those pictures. I had been looking forward to getting back to IUP in time to catch Lost with friends, but because manhattan came and ate two hours of my day, everyone was asleep by the time I got back into town. I don't blame them. I finally got to 422 and started spacing out. I glanced out my window and saw the only constellation I can identify. I noticed how clear the skies are out here and considered the short list of redeeming qualities this town has. But who needs the stars when you can go inside and fall asleep next to someone you love? I've never been so content just listening to someone breathe. Or in my case, listening to the sleep burp concerto featuring the "I'm-a whoop yo fuckin ass" orchestra. Big ups to Brooklyn. 

Day Ninety

This is a make up from Saturday February 28th, which was our first real competition, which was at Windber. The highlight of my afternoon was finding this... thing on display. The first picture is what I found after a quick lazy google of "drug identification guide." I would absolutely love to find one of these things on ebay. If you look closely (in person - you can't see it here), there's a warning in the bottom left hand corner telling you not to sample the encased drugs as they are not real. The chart is freaking huge though, everything in there is life sized. From the hash pipe to the coke spoon.

In all its glory...

Dangerous alcohol. Notice the actual bottle on display next to it for a size comparison. Also notice the cheap white zin and wine cooler.

What I want to know is who had to give up their bong, roach clip and (not pictured) hash pipe for the greater good? 

Aw, look at the little heroin kit!

Ah the Reagan years. We'll ignore AIDS but god damn if anyone's gonna get baked! Why do you need to identify drugs as a grade school student? Sara Benson (who was at the show with Tiff and Doug helping out their line for the day) made an excellent point. For someone who wouldn't know - like a child under 18 - this chart kind of tells you how to get high. Check out "inhalants" up at the top. Perhaps that's why there isn't an updated version of this anywhere. But yeah, I'm saying, what is the purpose of this? Are people less inclined to do drugs if they can identify them? "Well I was going to let you shoot that needle into my arm but not now, because I know that's HEROIN!" I don't understand the logic. 

Indoor has either changed a lot since I did it, or it feels different because I'm on this side of things now, or I have no clue what I'm talking about because it's been 9 years since I did it from the inside. We have no warm up areas, and they (so far) don't open up classrooms for groups. Apparently the standard is to just open the auditorium and designate a few rows for each ensemble. Makes sense because there's always some dumb ass kid who trashes the room or just messes with stuff, and if that happened to my classroom over the weekend I'd lose my mind. But still, that was the best part. Wandering around after the performance, meeting kids from other schools, hoping for an awkward almost romantic moment with whoever you had a crush on that week. Maybe that still goes on. I hope so, for their sake, because that's half the fun.

I wish we could rotate and have each kid run the ensemble for a night. Shoot even just for an hour. I think you become a better student once you can really appreciate what it's like on the other side of things. I was blessed with the ability to 'get it' when I was younger and was able to pick things up a little quicker than the other folks. Because of this, I was usually asked to help whoever was having trouble. Odd that I'm on my way to becoming a music teacher, because I absolutely freaking hated doing that. I had no idea how to teach anyone anything back then, and instead of being able to just chill because I learned my parts quicker, I wound up having to do more work. Either way, it gave me some pretty solid insight as to who really had the harder job. However, it also made me never want to teach. Ha. Can you blame me? I was 15 and I knew who had the sweet deal. All I had to do was show up. Everyone else told me what to do and how to do it. I just had to be there and take care of myself.

Day Eighty Nine

Alright. Time to catch up. It's been a rough two weeks. I haven't wanted to write anything down because in a year or so when I go back and read about this point in my life, I doubt there's anything I'll want to remember about it. I'm fighting the urge to whine about everything here. Anytime I open the personal drama floodgates, I always feel like a complete tool later. I should save myself the trouble of making my bullshit look deep and poetic and just get a tshirt that says "I'm sad and my friends are tired of hearing about it."

I'm home right now. This is how Abby likes to sleep. Notice there is little space for anyone but her. I'm on spring break this week. Go figure, the day I leave that icy hell, eastern PA gets its first big snow storm. There's about 8 inches of snow on the ground outside. But I don't mind. This part of the state is capable and willing to remove snow. The roads were clear and drivable before it even stopped snowing.

Here she is again, being adorable.

I had to restring the "marimba" at johnstown last week. It's really more of a weird 70s love child between a marimba and a xylophone, but whatever. I realized I didn't have a lighter in my bag for this exact purpose, so I stopped on the way home and picked one up. I got carded. This bothered me because my license is not easily removed from my wallet. As I was digging it out, the 40 something woman working the counter looked back at her friend and joked, "Watch, I bet she's like 20." If she had said this to me, and not about me to her friend standing 5 feet away, I wouldn't have been so tempted to remind her that she works in a gas station. 

Buuuuh... when was this? February 20th. Thanks to IUP's night at the PSO, I got to see the Pittsburgh Symphony do Carmina Burana. Very cool. I never thought I'd be the type to give a shit about the anyone symphony. But it was fun. Definitely made me homesick. I got on the Philly O's website when I got home. Of course they're doing Firebird the weekend we have to record for orchestra. Dear orchestra, I hate you.