breathe in, breathe out, drift

Even though PD's personality has undergone a strangely positive transformation since she announced her divorce, I'm still finding it difficult to de-stress. Perhaps the most worrying aspect is that, for the first time in my life, my blood pressure is a bit too high.

Also, I've noticed that my tension level sometimes nearly succeeds in choking me. I literally have trouble breathing properly at times. It's as if a sneaky little stress gremlin made himself at home in one of my filing cabinets while I was looking for brown sugar Pop Tarts (they're always in an upstairs vending machine). My throat tightens up and I realize I'm gasping for air. Last week the workplace breathing yips hung around to where I took them to shaolin class; the senior instructor noticed something was amiss and took me aside to help me recover.

It doesn't seem right that I should let a job choke the life out of me. In fact, it seems kind of stupid. So I decided I should do something about it, unscripted. My only rule was to leave liaisons with men out of the equation if at all possible.

So far, the result of my little campaign is that I've stopped worrying about when I get to bed, play the piano until 3:00 am if I like, and drive aimlessly and fearlessly around until I'm ready to return to Chez Melina. Perhaps not 100% fearless. More like 90%.

Last night, with the help of my beloved GPS, I ended up outside Sunnyvale, top down and speeding when I shouldn't have been. And somehow I executed a near-perfect drift the first time I attempted it. At least it felt perfect.

destined for greatness (for three minutes)

Some music is destined to live for centuries, making their composers legendary. Some music is is destined to live on your car radio for three minutes, and forgotten the minute you reach your destination, or the next song begins. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Along with other Australian acts who never made it across the swamp, The Sharp was one I particularly liked. (Deborah Conway and Jenny Morris are two others.)

I bumped into The Sharp on Youtube tonight and snagged this song, after trying and failing to buy the music legally at iTunes. Part of me cringes a bit at the datedness of the whole thing, but I feel no guilt playing it when cruising about with the top down on the bimmer.

determined fingers

I am kicking myself for not repairing my piano earlier. Perhaps I was harboring a subconscious fear that, once it was fully functional again, I would discover that I'd forgotten everything I'd learned (I began lessons at five). But now I'm practicing/playing at every opportunity. How could I have forgotten how much I loved to play?

I'm not claiming I have a special talent, as I don't. But one of my few virtues is patience. And with patience comes a willingness to practice.

It reminds me of when I was learning to ride a bicycle; I refused training wheels from the beginning, even though my ability to learn how to balance on the bike took so long that my mother was beginning to worry that I had some type of disability. But once I learned how to ride, I was unstoppable, much to my parents' chagrin. I thought nothing of cruising the foreign neighborhoods of Casa Linda and Casa View until way after dark, and was genuinely confused when I came home and discovered that my parents were on the verge of calling the police.

The variety of stuff I play is certainly odd. Two days ago, I was playing Beethoven; last night it was Ray Charles. Not sure what this says about me.

run, Mel, run

From my late teens to my mid-30s, I moved house a lot. This was for a number of reasons: mostly schools, jobs or boyfriends, with an expiring lease here and there.

It got so confusing for my mother that, when I was in my 20s, I bought her a second address book specifically for my dozens of addresses and numbers. She maintains it as mine exclusively to this day.

I didn't really notice how many addresses I'd had until the early 1990s, when I applied for an Australian residency visa. I had to list all my addresses for the previous 10 years. I came up with 13. Crikey!

I think my ten years here at Chez Melina is a record. So, combined with the arrival of another Texas summer, I've been scoping out my next move. I have it pencilled in for next year.

Part of me is dreadfully tempted to move to California. I'm one of those odd people who like Los Angeles and don't mind the freeway. And I would think it heavenly to live in Pasadena, even if I couldn't afford Bungalow Heaven (no, I can't).

I was looking at duplex rentals in Pasadena earlier today; the rentals aren't as bad as I feared. It's doable. And there are plenty of jobs for quirky writers.

off the grid?

Even though Chez Melina finally sprang back to life last Friday, after eight days of no electricity, there still isn't any TV or internet service. Sometimes I feel a yearning for the National Geographic channel, or G4's Movies That Don't Suck. But the lack of television seems to have had an oddly tranquilizing effect. I'm not suffering as much from ADD as I usually do. I'm catching up on my reading. I even got out my tool kit and managed to repair my piano, after it had gathered dust from over a year of disuse (I'd bumped the back of it against the wall and dislodged a wire). It's a Suzuki electric piano with a full keyboard and weighted keys; it plays just like a real piano but without the need to tune it.

Part of me is considering killing off the 200 channels and just keeping the wifi portion of u-verse.

Last but not least, there was some odd news from PD. After an expensive wedding less than eight months ago, she's already getting a divorce. The divorce isn't odd - I mean, who would want to be married to her for long? But the Odd Factor is that, since she announced the death of her troth last week, she's been considerably nicer to me. Like her obsession for control has taken a holiday. Let's hope it doesn't return. I might not have to find another job after all.