April 07, 2008

9:43 p.m.

Monday Night

We have a school show at the crack of dawn tomorrow, about an hour or more away. Whee!

At least I finished my homework today for tomorrow's class, and I can take a nap when I get home.

How can it be that my apartment is messier than EVER right now?? Everywhere I turn there's stuff I need to put away. I think it creeps out when I'm in the other room.

I found a Fox in Socks stuffed animal (from the Dr. Seuss book) at Kohl's for only $5, that I can use for a Reiki proxy. This is when I need to practice attunements but don't have a body in the house. He's awfully cute. Bright orange, with bright blue socks and mitts. He has a very long nose and he can sit up all by himself. Needless to say, he's extremely plushy and soft. Because of his very elegant schnozz, I named him Snout. He's VERY happy here, after being carelessly made in China by an underpaid worker who didn't care about him, and being shipped and displayed among countless others of his kind. I picked him up and told him he had his own personality and destiny, and that it was to begin right now.

And the $5 allegedly goes to educational and health programs for kids. There is no better way to start your life than with a mitzvah.

********

We played in the Bronx last weekend, and I did not get too lost and the trip was fairly easy. There was this whole brouhaha around a percussion player we know, whom I will call Marty, who wanted to play the gig with us. Many years ago Marty used to tour with Carol, when she was a soloist. They even had a brief intimacy, until Carol realized what a horrible mistake it was. See, Marty is... a bit of a noodge. He's ALWAYS on the make, and he's ALWAYS trying to get into the limelight, and when we play in NYC he calls and asks if he can sit in on a few tunes. Two years ago we played down there and that's what happened, and it was fine as far as that went.

The trouble was, he was doing kind of inappropriate things sort of but not exactly behind people's backs... like standing behind Carol near the CD table in the half-light, not touching her but moving the flat of his hand down describing the curve of her ass, as if to say to himself, "Ooh, la LA!" Chris witnessed this from across the room, though Carol was unaware. Marty is well aware that Chris and Carol are married. We talked about it later and got the heebie jeebies over it. He tried to talk me up after the gig, and while he seems a perfectly nice person, one can tell that the inevitable is coming... "Would you mind if I called you?" And yes, I would mind, thank you.

So this time he calls a few days before the gig, and asks to sit in on a few songs, and Carol, taken unawares, says okay. Over the next few days he calls again and says, "I've just listened to everything on your latest album, and it's all straight ahead! I could play the whole gig with you!" Chris is talking to him by this time and is trying every way he can think of to say "No," without hurting Marty's feelings. It's not all straight ahead, we won't have time to rehearse, we're trying to use our new wireless mics and that'll take some time to set up... But Marty's pushy, and he's hungry, and he's being a bit of a nuisance. Chris is trying to be diplomatic and respect the longstanding relationship Carol has with him. Finally he runs out of ideas and blurts out, "Well, the thing is, Bornearly really gets thrown when other people sit in; it really confuses her to have a percussionist without rehearsing first, so I really think we have to let it go aside from the few tunes we talked about."

I don't know any of this is going on; I'm sitting in my office doing homework. The phone rings. It's the "generic ring," the one I haven't assigned to anyone I know, so I don't answer it. Later when I take a break I check the caller ID and see that it was Marty.

Why the hell's Marty calling me?

I talk to Chris and he tells me the ongoing story, and we have a good laugh and I say he must have been really desperate. He says he's going to call Marty back and berate him in a friendly way for calling me and potentially putting me on the spot.

An hour later I call him back; he's at the hairdresser with dye all over his hair. It's getting on his cell phone. I say I'm really uncomfortable with the fact that he told a lie about me, which I'll have to either support when Marty brings it up at the gig, or blow out of the water with the truth, which will give Chris some 'splainin' to do. He says he'll probably just confess the whole thing to Marty, which he eventually does.

Finally Carol makes an executive decision and does what she should have done originally: she calls Marty up and says, I'm really sorry, but there's a lot going on for me right now, and I really don't want you to play on this gig. My dad died, I'm debuting a song for a guy about his wife who died last year, reasons reasons etc.. So we're all off the hook. To his credit, he did apologize to Chris about calling me, saying he knew it was a bad idea right away and that's why he left no message. Also apologized for being pushy about the playing.

Final chapter: played gig, had fun, Marty came to listen, talked me up endlessly after the show until I was literally stepping into my car to drive off, asked if he could call me sometime. "I feel this very spiritual connection to you!" I told him I was seeing someone and he very robustly (and therefore unconvincingly) said, "Oh, that's GREAT! I'm really glad! Because I was wondering about you... I mean, Chris and Carol are together all the time, but you, you're by yourself on the road, traveling so much... how can you find the time...?"

Poor Marty. I told him my person and I are "inextricably entwined," and that was that.

I have not had a bite of junk food or dessert in five days, and while that is not even the whisper of the blink of an eye in the larger picture, I feel much better. Except tonight, where I have a funny stomach pain because I'm anxious about the school shows tomorrow. We rehearsed again the other day but we've changed a lot of slides in the presentation and I'm still fuzzy in places, despite having a little script. Ach. We'll get through it. I'm finding it very hard to change hats here -- intense homework hat (this week it's all about getting the Celebrancy business off the ground), gig hat, school show hat. I'm noivous. It'll be okay.