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.