courage, hope, rum

As my days at the desk draw to a close, I sit at work and obsessively check the number of students enrolled in my classes. And it is becoming clear that the piano classes that were added late, which I said I'd teach and which were the reason I quit my job at the desk, do not have enough kids enrolled to run. Perhaps kids will sign up at the last minute, but it's looking like they'll probably be canceled. I don't think I can get the desk job back, and I freaked out just a little, but I decided I'm going to stick with the plan. If I'm going to be a teacher and a performer, then that's what I'm going to do. If I have less classes, maybe I'll see if I can start teaching some private lessons, or do more self-promotion and get more gigs and parties. I had basically every hour of my life scheduled before; now it's opening up wide and who knows what will fill it.

Watched Obama's speech last night. He is amazing. This is all so amazing. I try to be a fairly optimistic, hopeful person, but when I watch him speak I realize that I have been cynical and reluctant to have any hope for the kind of change he is trying to bring. The invitation to hope is terribly emotional. Also exciting.

Went to this bar downtown called Angels and Kings on Wednesday night with Erica. She just started an internship with Venns Magazine and this was their issue release party It was very hip and there were free rum drinks and free purses of swag and some rockin' bands and live band karaoke at the end. Ben and Christos came too, and we all blew out our eardrums and had too much rum for a Wednesday. I sang Heartbreaker and Erica busted out 4 Non-Blondes and we biked home all happy. I am getting awesome at biking with no hands.

keeping busy, in no particular order

-Julia visited; we biked all over the city, had Hot Doug's, saw Paul Green Rock School kids play at Millennium Park, ate gelato, ate eggplant parmesean that Ben made, watched Margot at the Wedding, breakfasted at Vella. Great sisterly times.

-Since my last post I've played 6 kids birthday parties, 2 Millennium Park Family Stage WW shows, 2 gigs with Baba Mnouche at the Art Institute and McCormick Place, and 1 gig with Come Sundy at the Green Mill (photos!).

-Tom and his banjo came along on the last day of WW class. So, so great. The kids loved it, I loved it, the energy in the room was incredibly happy. I saw little Alexander's mom a few days later and she was desperately seeking a cheap used banjo as he has been obsessed ever since.

-Picked up Finn for the last time; have to quit with the new job changes. Dropped off the carseat and keys at his dad's, along with a burned copy of every TMBG song in my posession for Finn.

-Brunches: Cozy Corner with Meredith, Mado with Ben. Lounging in Wicker Park near the farmer's market following each.

-Read "Cloud Atlas" by David Mitchell, at Janna's recommendation. Complicated. Multiple storylines. Liked it.

-Tomoko's Tuesday noon yoga class is still kicking my ass and I still love it. Meara came once and we lunched at Milk & Honey afterwards. Yummy!

-Dinner with Meredith and Ben, at Maiz, at Irazu. Handlebar drinks afterwards, joined by Molly and Jim.

-Got Meredith's bike fixed together. Biking with Meredith! Lunch at Cipollina.

-Penny's to go, brought downtown via bike with Ben to see An Affair To Remember outside in Grant Park.

-Internaional Bike Film Festival closing night shorts, followed by weird loft party.

-Coffee with the long-lost Emily at Lovely.

-Grilled cheese and too many beers with Erica at the Roscoe Village Tap, joined by Ben and Leah.

-Tornado in Chicago, while trapped inside Cleo's with Ryan Hagn over wings.

-Finish-the-keg-from-the-fundraiser party at Jeremy's. Vote for Jeremy!

-Trip to the vet with Adeline after finding a crawly worm in her puke. Ewwwwwwwww. She was super good and is now up to date on her shots and on her way to being roundworm-free. She has literally been sleeping since we got back yesterday afternoon; didn't get up for breakfast till noon today, and went back upstairs to sleep in the clothes in the laundry basket.

-Drive to a music store in the suburbs, followed by filling up with cheap gas and a corned beef sandwich on rye. Yes, Skokie.

-Missed being a part of this, quite sadly, but hey you can watch it on the internet. These are my relatives.

-Wrote a song on the piano for the first time.

-Met M, a flautist, pianist, and old friend of Taavo's at Lovely.

-Watched Walk Hard at the OTS movie night in the concert hall. Brought hot-out-the-oven peanut butter chocolate chunk cookies. Let's duet...

-Watched some Olympics; mostly got teased by Ben for not liking the Olympics enough. Did not tease him back for his intense love of both the Olympics and of Canada's national anthem.

-Saw Ben do his first (mini) triathlon. Got shin splints myself, running from a mile away where I had to park but still missed the start. Ben did great; finished 263rd out of 742. Downed a breakfast at Ann Sather's afterward. The next day he videoed the big triathlon downtown; it was his first video piece for Chicagoist.

-Today's gorgeous and I have to get outside.

I'm a quitter

I quit my job at the front desk.

I did so because I was offered the opportunity to teach another afternoon of piano classes. I said yes.

Which means that I am a full time music teacher/performer. If all of my classes run, I will have 17 at the school! 8 piano, 7 WW, and 2 kids' voice.

This is amazing, and a big change. I feel a little sad about it; I've been working at the desk since spring 2005, and all in all it has been a good run. I like being so connected in the workings of the school, and I like all of the opportunities to connect with people that come from being at the desk. Apart from my front desk co-workers and the good times I have with them, I have gotten to know all kinds of teachers, staff and students. I've hung out and befriended many, I've learned a lot, I've gotten gigs, I've found new collaborators, I've learned about happenings around the city, I've gotten tipsy. My built-in social network is changing. Of course I will still be around the school all the time, but I'm going to have to work a lot harder to see a lot of folks I currently see on a regular basis.

It makes me feel grownsed up.

But truth be told I have been stressed out by all of these exciting opportunities, and am finding it hard to keep my balance as I teeter on the brink of moving courageously ahead and falling into a sad pit of self-conscious despair. All these double edged swords. Being excited to teach and create this voice class quickly led to the realization that I've never done so before, and fear that I don't have the right skills or resources, and that the class will fail and the kids won't like it and the bosses will cancel it. The big step of full time teachering and performing daunted by the fear and sadness of leaving a comfortable, social, relatively easy job, and my embarrassment for those feelings and my own lack of enthusiasm for progress. The chance to record an album went from excitement about sharing my music to feeling dumb about all my songs and my musical skill level and not wanting to play them for anyone, let alone teach them to other musicians and ask them to play with me. Summertime hedonism filtered from relishing every lazy moment to feeling guilty about my unproductive selfish joy. That spread quickly to my job; pride in professional musicianship and my supposedly honorable status of "Teacher" shifted into shame and fear that my skills and I are no more than novelty for the wealthy.

There's this line from a Rilo Kiley song: "Folk singers sing songs for the working, baby; we're just recreation for all those doctors and lawyers." It's been stuck in my head for a few days. This sounds so dumb but I sometimes feel that I let Macalester down? Am I making the world better or worse? A big part of me would love to just drink booze and coffee and eat whatever I want and entertain myself and shoot the shit and ponder music and art and feelings and philsophies.... That's pretty much what I do every day in fact. Is it all just bullshit?

I was going to tell you about all the stuff I've been doing but now it's too depressing. It's been fun and I've been drunk a lot and eating and laughing and hanging out. Fuck. I feel terrible. I've guilted myself out of all my joy. I did it in my sleep too; last night in my dreams an exciting encounter with one of my favorite teachers took a negative turn when he morphed into a certain assumptive presidential nominee, we got caught and I realized I had ruined his candidacy and all hope for America.

Sorry this post turned into such a downer. If I feel better later I'll fill you in on the good times I've been summering.

Ok, I'm blogging

I've been busy, and not feeling the blog this summer. Sorry everybody. I have done a lot of stuff. And there are pictures of some of them on the internet! Thanks to Ben (and Jana and Meghan) for the sweet pictures. UPDATE: You can view even more pictures of these things if you wish by visiting Ben's photos here.

I went to Molly's 4th of July party. Ate and drank and watched xplosions.


I went to Door County with the fam. Cooked food and biked and played games and swam and fish boiled and petted aminals at The Farm.


I worked and performed two times and had fun at the OTS Folk&Roots festival.
Rocked out, danced hard, got drunk.

Jana, Chris, friends came to stay at attend the Pitchfork music festival with us. Walking burrito party, rain, sweat, Vampire Weekend, Hold Steady, Les Savy Fav, blisters, party at our house, guitar playing for Jana, big breakfast in the backyard, mild exhaustion. (Jana's sweet post here.)

I played some kids gigs, at Millennium Park and at the Chicago Children's Museum. Take Me Out To The Ballgame is the big hit of the summer.

I went to Colorado with Ben, staying in Telluride with his family and in Boulder with Taavo, Kiki, Alex and Ben S. Hiked, ate, drank, rode bikes, rode a gondola, crashed a wedding.

The entire first floor of our house got covered with dust from the roofers next door via the windows we'd left open for Adeline; it was cleaned before we got home but Adeline had a gray tummy for a week.

Adeline totally rules.

I helped with a scene for Emily's music video that Ben is filming and hung out with her before she left her Chicago apartment for good.

I biked 150 miles in the BDBT and raised almost $800 for MS research.

I drank coffee, I drank beer, I ate late night pizza.

I played music, I heard music, I made up music.

I got kind of tan.

I got kind of burned.

I wore my pink sunglasses.


I am feeling both very present and very absent. Living in the moment has been good but I'm starting to feel overwhelmed by decisions and plans and preparations I have to make for the future. In the fall I am starting a brand new class at work, which I am super excited about, and which is starting to make me very nervous. My standards for myself are high and I want to do a good job, and I'm suddenly aware that I am starting from scratch with no official training. There's work to be done there. For my other classes too; I need to do some planning for the next sessions of Worms and Piano. Also, a friend pulled some strings for me and I have an opportunity to record an album, for free, which is unacceptable to pass up. There is work there too, and decisions to be made: Do I do my original singer/songwriterey things or do I do an album of kids songs? Solo or with a band? Who will play? What instruments? Which songs? I have gigs coming up with my grownup bands, at the Green Mill (!) with Come Sund.y and at the Art Institute with Baba M.nouche; I want those to be good, but I also have to decide how involved I want to be with those groups... There's a convention coming up that they're taking the WW staff to, and I have to decide how much of that I want to attend, although it's the same weekend as the Hideout Block Party where Neko Case and the New Pornographers, both of whom are high up on the list of artists I want to be like, will be playing one block from my house... I am a teacher and a performer and a kids artist and a grownup artist and a creator and a collaborator and a young person in the city, and I have to decide how to divide myself up. I want to do everything. But I can't. Saying yes is easy. Saying no is hard. Saying not anymore is the hardest. "It's the hour of action; I've got to decide..."

Someone just showed me this video. Have you seen this? It's wonderful; cute, and creative, and it makes you feel good. Really- I guess that's all I want to be.