wonderful things about today
1. The recitation by our classics professor of a poem by W.H. Auden, "Musee des Beaux Arts," and the sketching on a nearby chalkboard of the painting that it referenced. ("Brueghel, eat your heart out!") He drew a smiley face inside the sun!
2. Writing up the answers to two math problems on the blackboard in class today, and being treated as though I weren't wasting everyone's time when I tried to donate blood in the Student Union and learned that my head cold was too recent to make the venture safe or useful.
3. Walking to Main Street and finding out that despite the enormous line in front of The Ark, tickets were still available.
5. Unexpected conversations with seatmates. The first and only other time that this has happened was at a high school production of the musical "Anything Goes": the woman sitting next to me gave me a stern lecture on the dearth of personability and salesmanship among modern teenagers, which, in retrospect, was fair enough given that I have an inaudible voice and my idea of personability involves a lot of agreeable nodding. Today's seatmate had seven children, at least three of whom were adopted, spent the summer raising two litters of orphaned kittens, concert hopped around the state, cheered when Vienna Teng hinted at her political views in between songs, wore a magnificent ivy-green velvety thing, and lived in the countryside. (She said she hung around the "aged ponytail crowd," but she took one of her grandsons to something she called an old-folks music festival and it made enough of a lasting impression on him that he bought a baritone ukulele a few months later, which inevitably made me think of these guys, which, hurrah for ukuleles! Are any of you guys fans?)
On the other side of me was a girl who'd developed a rather intense MySpace fangirl relationship with the opening act's lead guitarist (the one stranded at the airport with all the merchandise).
Both of them were maybe twice as large as I was (which, if you know me, is no insignificant feat), but they seemed, in the brief moments that I knew them, to be profoundly at peace with themselves and their right to enjoy the world. They were interesting and convivial and enthusiastic women. One of them catcalled every time the opening singer paused for air between "thank you"s, and she wore a dangerously low-cut top. I wish I knew how to be that okay with myself around other people, even for a little while. I felt a little more relaxed around them, at least. If I'd sat next to anyone sharper or thinner or more conventionally lovely, I'd have spent the concert holding my breath and trying not to exist. The attitude that this reveals makes me horrified to be myself - if I have to mentally mark off certain people as people around whom it is okay to be relatively unselfconscious, I am also mentally marking some off as people next to whom I think I have less reason to be self-conscious, and that is revolting and cruel and not true. I had to remind myself between songs that I was still the worst of the strange triumvirate we made and I always would be. It is time to cut myself out of my thoughts already. Now you know what I'm really like, though.
6. The female vocalist for the opening act - a quiet girl who spent most of the songs with her head bowed, joining in on choruses and sometimes refrains with a voice that reminded me of Lisa Hannigan, although for no particular reason - it didn't really have the signature rasp.
When she left, she took a hoodie with her that she'd apparently been keeping on the bench next to her, and that more than anything made me think that she'd wandered onto the stage from the high school cafeteria or her last class, and discovered an unexpectedly brilliant knack for singing.
7. "Anna Rose." (It was a request, but not the one I'd been secretly yearning for. I thought, time to deal with the fact that you've only recognized one song so far, but then it made me cry. Is it a song about a child? Because that's what I took it as, and the tears confirmed that I've reached that part of my life where I spend too much time wishing the future could be as bright and full of possibilities as it was when I was younger and hadn't fouled up my life yet.)
8. The string duo! Their pantomime made for a sweet and silly accompaniment to "City Hall," and the clapping. Oh, the clapping. I'd love to know more about them and their forthcoming projects.
9. Listening to the entire room sing.
10. The very last song.
11. Going to the dorm bathroom to change into pajamas and hearing a hallmate having a sentimental telephone conversation through a mouthful of toothpaste.
Edit: 12. FORGETTING HOW TO COUNT.