Ruminations

Somewhere between burrito number one and beer number two, I realized that, if you're in a certain mood, everything becomes a metaphor.

I am a habitual over-stuffer of burritos. I load my tortilla with every ingredient I enjoy (all of them), in exactly the right proportions. I always go back and add more cheese, just to even things out. This happens every time, and I am aware of it. Yet it still happens. (If you came here to read about music, hang tight.)

Just like my burritos, my individual artistic pursuits are often grande in conception but unwieldy, disasterous, even comical in execution. I once co-wrote a 40-minute musical in three weeks because it seemed very important and vaguely possible. (It's no longer on my CV.) I once composed a short piano work mere minutes before my undergraduate senior composition recital began, because I had promised it to myself. (Yes, I performed it.) I once began making snow angels as a finals week stress-reliever, and ended up wasting two hours etching the first four bars of "Twinkle, Tinkle" into the snow... in F Minor. (The staff was five feet tall.) And I once took on a major project that so consumed my life that, for months at a time, I rarely ate dinner at a table, saw friends outside of class, or slept six straight hours next to my wife.

My point is, I get these crazy ideas, and then, whether by desire or lack of clarity or sheer blind will, I convince myself that they are possible. And usually they are. But that isn't the point either. The point is, looking back on the great and embarassing and mediocre art I've created over the past nine years, I can't find ten minutes worth of music I've written that is more important to me than ten minutes with my family, my wife, or my friends. The same goes for school, career, and all those things with which I'm "supposed" to fill my days to become happy and successful.

Tonight's post was supposed to be about the (qualified, non-statistical) success of my CC21 project that ended last month. It was supposed to be about me moving halfway across the country, and working 60-hour weeks for all of September, and being so thankful for the opportunity to do so because this is it, this is what I've been working toward for ten years. But instead it's about stepping back from all of that, as positive as some of it is, and reminding myself, through some stupid metaphors, what really makes me happy. It's about acknowledging and choosing.

Tonight I had a great solution to my bloated burrito problem. I wrapped my strained tortilla... in another tortilla. This kept the ingredients securely inside, perhaps for the first time in my burrito-assembling career. The result was chewy, and carb-tastic in all the wrong ways. It was a step in the right direction, but I know the real solution will require some serious austerity measures. So I'll try again tomorrow. Next time I will keep my portions manageable. Next time I will pay attention to what is in front of me. And next time I will practice actually being there, eating dinner, at dinner time.

As the night inched closer, I reached again for my drink. I stared blankly at the wall while vaguely disappointing thoughts of unmet deadlines and personal responsibilities swirled in my brain. With the bottle an inch from my lips, I realized this wasn't the Shiner Blonde I was expecting. This was the Frank's Red Hot I'd been applying liberally and mindlessly to my burrito supremo. I caught myself, laughed, and made the needed beverage substitution.

If you didn't catch it, there's your second metaphor of the story: If you don't pay attention to what you've put on the table in front of you, you might get burned, and make an awful fool of yourself in the process.

I don't have a good ending for this story. But it's not over yet.

100 Days to Premiere

Hopefully you'll be seeing a lot less of me in the near future. As my opera premiere approaches, we've hit a milestone. There are now 100 days before the premiere.

With that deadline looming and my sluggish rate of progress of late, I'm instituting a new rule: 1 minute of internet usage for every 5 minutes spent composing. So if I compose for three hours today, I'll earn 36 minutes surfing the web.

Hopefully this will cut out my single biggest distraction - all those tiny, moderately urgent tasks that push themselves to the front of my ToDo list. I hope you'll be seeing a little less of me until July, but I think it'll be worth it.

Timing starts now.

Update: Priorities

Another blog entry more for me than for anyone else. (Aren't they all?)

Next Tuesday marks one month since moving to Hawaii. (Wow, one whole month already?!) We're mostly settled, mostly know our way around, and are mostly still enjoying ourselves thoroughly.

I feel confident that my job search will pay off soon, and I am really looking forward to the structure that will bring to my days. Lately I've gotten very little artistic work done while having all the time in the world!

Because I love lists, here's a list of goals and projects I'm considering working on while I'm here.

* Exercise:
   - Play Ultimate 2-4 days per week
   - Swim 1-2 days per week
   - Exercise (including Ultimate and swimming) 4-6 days per week

* Professional Development:
   - Listen to operas, other classical works, at least 1 day per week
   - Practice theremin
   - Practice piano
   - Read music history text

* Creative Commons Projects (education materials free for public use):
   - Music Theory Examples (Roman Numerals, part-writing, form, etc.)
   - Aural Skills Examples (chords, intervals, melodies, harmonies, etc...)

* Compositions:
   - String Quartet No. 1: At Best It Sometimes Rhymes (revision of 2009 work)
   - Dirge for the New Sunrise (chamber work based on the Edith Sitwell poem)
   - in memoriam Hibakusha (revision of 2007 voice, piano, and tape work)
   - Miniature Symphony No. 1 in D Major (arrangement for piano trio)
   - She Gestures (engraving of proportional-time spacing piano solo)
   - Orpheus (re)Set (completion of 2008 set of songs)
   - [Untitled] (orchestral work honoring Lincoln's bicentennial)
   - [Untitled] (new 60-minute, one-act chamber opera)
   - [Untitled] (a set of contemporary etudes for the theremin)
   - [Untitled] ("Great American Songbook"-style songs, maybe for Christmas?)

Anything I've left out?