beautiful, funny, sad & true

When I arrived, I got out of my car and noticed that my friend Skip’s car had a piece of plastic where the rear passenger window should have been.  I tried to call him to find out what happened, but there was no answer, so I sent him a text asking if anything had been taken.  No response, so I signed onto VisageTome to find that practically everyone I knew had posted an update saying something to the effect of, “Skip’s cello STOLEN!  It looks like [description]. . .please help!”

It happened this afternoon on Northeast 13th Avenue, sometime between 11:00 a.m. and 1:00 p.m.

Here’s Skip’s description of the instrument:

“There’s a coffee stain on the bridge of the instrument.  It’s very dusty and has a large area of finger nail scratches on the right side.  It’s made by Virgilio Cappelini 1982 in Cremona, Italy and the label inside says so. It has a metal tailpiece (all scratched up) and a Shuback bridge.”

If you have this cello (and if you’re not Skip), IT IS NOT YOURS and you should do the right thing and turn it in to the police.  They are looking for it (AND FOR YOU!) and so are hundreds of Skip’s friends.  You’d better pray that the police find you before one of us does.

“Thank you for your application for the position of [JobTitle] with [CompanyName].  We were very impressed with the quality of the applicants, and the final selection from among the many fine candidates was a difficult one.   It is, therefore with regret that we inform you the the position has been filled.  Thank you again for your interest.  We wish you success in attaining your professional goals.”

I despise everything about the job-hunting process.   It’s demeaning and horrible, and I just hate it.  I hate being judged and compared, and I hate having to be ‘on’ all the time.  I hate this economy and how it’s crippling the entire world, and I hate how this financial mess could so easily have been avoided.  Corporate greed, predatory lending practices, and lack of any real oversight are finally being recognized for being ruthless, reprehensible, and even criminal.

It’s true; I could have and should have done many things differently in my life, and I still have plenty of hard choices ahead, but I also know that there are many thousands of people out there who have it much worse than I do, and I’m trying really hard not to get too down about my own situation.  I do still have options, and good health, and a pretty decent and low-overhead life, but it’s getting harder and harder each week to keep up my indomitable spirit.

“At a certain point in your life (probably when too much of it has gone by) you will open your eyes and see yourself for who you are. . .especially for everything that made you so different from all the awful Normals.  And you will say to yourself, ‘But I AM this person.’  And in that statement – that correction – there will be a kind of love.”

-”Phoebe in Wonderland”

This afternoon, at rehearsal, I cracked my good cello bow.  It happened while I was gesturing to the drummer to play something that was different from what he was playing.  The guitarist didn’t see me doing that, and he turned around a little bit, which is when my bow smacked into the neck of his electric guitar.   Here’s the result:

You can see how close it came to being a fatal break.  I’m fairly sure that it can be glued, but if for some reason it can’t be, you’re going to be reading about a very unhappy Todd, very soon.  Luckily, I do still have my old backup bow, but it isn’t nearly as responsive or as high-quality as this one is.

This really blows.

I could use a glass of wine, a hug, and an influx of cash.

On the morning of September 11, 2001, I woke up and turned on my clock radio, which was set to NPR, so that I could listen to the news while I woke up.   What I heard was utter pandemonium.  Something about planes, and smoke, and the Pentagon being on fire, and the White House possibly under attack.  I hoped it was a prank of some sort, like War of the Worlds or something, but it certainly sounded as if something big was happening, so I rubbed my eyes, got out of bed, and shuffled into the living room to turn on the TV.

I sat watching, glued to the screen, for the next five hours.  I was horrified and a little choked up, wondering what in the world was happening.  When I went to work that afternoon, everyone else was freaking out too.  We all wore headphones and listened to the news as it unfolded.  Our hearts went out to the people whose lives were lost, and to our friends and family members who lost friends and family members in the events of that tragic day.  In a larger sense, the country continues to mourn a certain kind of innocence that we lost, never to be regained.

I still can’t believe that it’s been eight years since all that occurred.  The world is so very different than it was on September 10, 2001.