A Christmas kaleidoscope. Or is it?

Hmmmm.

(I feel like this is the throwaway gag at the beginning of a Calvin and Hobbes strip: Music Shivers stroking her chin and staring shifty-eyed around her … )

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Random anecdotes and notes of importance:

My hair is really lovely lately.  I’ve missed long hair.  Grow, my pretties, grow.

I called Trooper tonight from my parents’ house (where I am staying overnight, helping with Christmas decor and baking).  I subbed for her this morning in baby class, and tomorrow morning is when we usually do a class together so I wanted to know if we were going to need another sub tomorrow as well.  It looks like we might; and that the person we otherwise would call in, is already away on holiday; ergo, I may be teaching a baby class entirely on my own.  I went through the whole 45-minute routine just now to see if I had it memorized if Trooper isn’t ready to work tomorrow morning.  I feel happily confident.  The only thing I feel remotely concerned about is the drum walk section, because I know Trooper usually does a specific sequence of rhythms, and I’ll probably just have to wing that.

Trooper gave me a heads up that she had called Ms Spur and that things are not looking good at our apartment right now: Theatre has announced that she might not come home for Christmas.  Ms Spur’s entire existence for the last eight weeks has practically been predicated on Theatre’s visit.  Ms Spur is a bit of a wreck tonight.  And here I am sleeping over at my parents’ place for totally unrelated reasons (my shopping excursion was longer than expected; hence the baking went later; hence, nobody is up to give me a ride back home as previously arranged – I’ll go home tomorrow and have a quick shower before work).

I never buy shoes, or purses.  And yet, tonight, I bought both a pair of shoes and a purse.  The shoes are nice simple brown ones that fit nicely but look good enough for performances (only $20 too … ).  The purse called out to me because it exactly matches a scarf that a girl just brought back from New York for me.  That’s another story that may be told later (I feel humbled and blessed, and I’m wondering when I last did something spontaneously wonderful like that for someone I don’t know very well).  I have literally no purses; it’s not something I ever think about; but I have decided that it might be fun to be girly for a change and not take a big backpack to a dressed-up do.

Yesterday was the faculty Christmas lunch.  Joy of joys, I sat next to U, and we chinwagged.  With some restraint.  A few bright and beady eyes were upon us.  So, when he mentioned that he hadn’t seen the recent Bond flick, and I mentioned that I hadn’t either and that my brother had liked it, and he said he’d like to see it  … the expectant pause wasn’t filled with the obvious "We should see it together!" conclusion.  It was my turn to say something and I felt like we both were suddenly aware of the people listening to us.  (I will call him after Christmas and suggest a movie night or something.)  I’m not sure anyone at the school understands that we have a friendship beyond our school life; that he called me in Victoria during those two years of study.  Anyway, just before we left, we hugged – Ach.  Beyond all the electrical stuff, I am so fond of him. 

Music school politics continue, nastily amusing.  I am very grateful to one fellow in particular because really, when I look back at the beginning of this saga, my backbone seemed to solidify around the time that he immediately came to my defense when things got weird backstage.  The idea that he defended me without a moment’s hesitation about whether or not I was worth it …  The tables have turned with regards to my position; I think a few incidents have given me power.  I hate thinking this way, but there it is.  I don’t want to give details on my diary, so I can’t really explain it.

I did an ambush Hallelujah Chorus singalong gig.  Someone from the music school came by the office when I was doing an evening shift there and asked, "When are you off?  Would you like to sight-read at a thing at the church around the corner?"  Guffawing, we zoomed over to my apartment where I did a Bond-like transformation from jeans and sneakers to tights and slinky black skirt and performance shoes, in record time; then we zoomed to the church, unpacked our violins just in time to wander onstage and sit among strangers, lifted violins to shoulders and played …

After years of hearing other people talk about the coyotes that haunt the spaces near my parents’ house, tonight, for the first time, I saw one.  I was waiting for P2 at a Park and Ride and a doggish creature appeared, and I don’t have an appropriate verb for its movement.  The only way I can think of putting it is that its legs seemed to move far too many times in proportion to how far its body was going.  It was eerie.  I stared and stared until it disappeared (zigzagging away) into the darkness enhanced by streetlights.

I looked up and saw Orion: first time this winter.  That was late!  Didn’t feel the yearning; only a slight ache, mostly nostalgic.

I love wrapping presents!

There has been a lot of Christmas loot from students this year.  And non-students.  The girl who gave me the glamorous scarf from New York is a girl who sits by the office, waiting for her lesson to begin or for her sister’s lesson to end, and she has taken to coming over and talking with me if I have nothing particularly to do except watch the lobby, which sometimes happens.  She brings crafts to teach me, and I show her math tricks, and our minds are very sparky.  It sounds like her school is a very good one, full of kids who love to learn and teachers who love to teach.  She is genuinely enthusiastic about a thousand things, it seems.  Her little sister also sometimes comes over and chats; sometimes she draws me things.  I have a picture up in my room that she drew, of me on a tropical island, with the sun rising over the sea, and dolphins cavorting just off the shore.  I love it that a little girl associates me with sunrises and dolphins.  Her older sister, when she gave me the scarf, had to put it around my neck for me, and then she stood back and said, "There!  That is so YOU!  It goes with your hair and everything!"  And there I was, Music Shivers, more gloriously me than ever, through the vision of a bright-eyed girl.

I wonder if I ever made a teacher feel more gloriously themselves than ever.

It was my father’s birthday.  (Interesting: I am the autumnal equinox; he is the winter solstice.)  I gave him an elephant-shaped teapot.  He made Earl Grey in it tonight.

Time to sleep if I’m to teach babies alone tomorrow morning.

I also will largely sight-read my way through accompanying a violin recital.  I’ve glanced at most of the music and I feel utter calm.

I backed Snickerdoodles tonight, after the big shopping spree.