a day in the life of piano monkey

when month of july approaches, a particular subject starts to stain my mind. a bit blue and a bit rusted, the thought grows, drinking on unshed tears. i wish to be easy, laugh and tell you happy birthday, give you a hug and a bunch of flowers, just like the way they do on television. realistically, here i am, writing and erasing, dropping pencil and picking up a new pen.  taking another new card then soon to fold it in half, starting again.  a pile of discarded attempt.  am i being too complicated? or such subject naturally requires such efforts? i cannot tell anymore. so here it is, your birthday greeting, way behind, dripping into the lateness of days, weeks.  but perhaps it is all alright. if it creeps up, like the weeds in the most attentively tended garden, may be it needs to come up, breath, live, even when it may be an inconvenience, like a lone dandelion in pristine green lawn. you live a hard life.  busy in the middle of t...

lamb chop with anchivy-tomato sauce cook (n.): O.E.  coc , from V.L.  cocus  "cook," from L.  coquus , from  coquere  "to cook, prepare food, ripen, digest, turn over in the mind" from PIE base  *pekw-  "to cook" (cf. Oscan  popina "kitchen," Skt.  pakvah  "cooked," Gk.  peptein , Lith.  kepti  "to bake, roast," O.C.S.  pecenu  "roasted," Welsh  poeth  "cooked, baked, hot"). Germanic languages had no one native term for all types of cooking, and borrowed the Latin word (cf. O.S.  kok , O.H.G.  choh , Ger.  Koch , Swed.  kock ). There is the proverb, the more cooks the worse potage. [Gascoigne, 1575] i think while i am in my english greenhills home, i spend majority of the time doing something very specific: cooking.  i spend the most time physically in the kitchen (which gets the lovely late sun till the dusk and since it's been recently scrubbed, it's even more pleasant...

*roses from treasurer's house, yorkshire the summer is running away it seems- how does it do that? when i boarded the plane to cross the puddle with PO, i swear that it was going to be long-drawn-out-summer-thing- but here we are, on 21st of july and im only barely making a dent at the blog. thank the lord for digital photography. what would i do without it- except for making stuff up all the time? haha. anyways.  so i had a great birthday dinner, a sunscreen allergy that robbed at least ten days out of me (it was... brutal; clinique sent me a cheque for 17.50 for my suffering. ha...), thoughts on manners and amusement over mother-daughter relations. *i was a bit unhappy about that. is that it for the long, restful summer? well, then there were: visit to chatsworth with PO and minnow local walks- yes, sun does come up once in awhile,  though there seems to be no clue WHEN the steam train ride on matlock line, museum of industry and technology in manchester,  me...

recently, there has been much noise about etiquette- personal and general. the international sensation withers-bournes was an interesting one, however, unfortunately there is no shortage of manners regardless of location and population.  perhaps it is impossible to underpin why social grace is no longer considered important while everyone, the average joe, knows and gets angry when one perceives lack of 'respect' from another, regardless of the cause. there are several occasions in recent years that had grated my nerves to raw.  fortunately most of them does not involve massive collisions of personalities. or is it fortunate? often i feel the most difficult situation is the one that you arent directly involved: there is nothing one could do but to endure.  a former friend who has turned uncivilized, for instance, had created much drama and tears (in 'lack of consideration for her feelings' while i have repeatedly asked her stance and feelings before making certain thi...

the other morning, i apparently woke with a sob. i thought i was rather waken by minnow for no good reason at all- and to add to confusion, it seemed that i was teary. what on earth?  well, it was a vivid dream.  one of those that you are completely immersed in, without any sense of 'sleep,' where it becomes more real than real. i cant exactly remember what was going on, but i tried to collect and remember as many things as possible, as it left me feeling a bit sorrowful. i was driving somewhere in a car, with my dad.  we were at the intersection near my parents' house and somehow, while making a left turn, we got T-ed by a passing red car. so we all got out of the car and started to pour out individual frustration- for some reason, we were on way home and we were late for something, mom was supposedly waiting for us.  then a bizarre thing: a spot light came up from nowheres, i initially thought it mustve be the police light, as we were blocking a huge intersecti...

in the days of 4G networks and smart phones, communication is becoming cheaper by the seconds i feel.  i am still holding onto my old school motolora phone; there are times when i am super tempted to upgrade to the fancy android phones, but somehow i have managed to avoid such splurge YET.  i try to do most of my communication through email- thanks to god, email format still seem to cling onto some old practices as proper addresses and closing/signatures and stuff, unlike the shorten txt gibs. but you see, you need to be on the network (hit he panic button)  and it does seem rather convenient to be able to check one's inbox couple times in an hour ( ! ) - during the peak season, i did lose couple gigs as people have replied with lightening speed (through phones, of course) and i thought over and over about conversion.  but suppose im still 'considering.'  how unfashionable of me! so why such cling to old conventions? well i do love snail mail.  once in ...

on fourth day of this absolute insanity-inducing urticaria situation, i think the angry blistery uprising has gone down a bit (or im just used to seeing my face bubbly at this point) though both my eyelids are puffy and heavy with unwanted fluids. what is my skin actually trying to fight against? i have no clue nor am a smidgen bit amused anymore.  beside constantly sitting on my hands (to prevent from scratching), only other solution seems to be stay 'cold.'  ho more luxurious hot showers for this monkey. until the urticaria has gone off. it's a bizarre phenomenon for me. unlike all other allergic reactions i had in the past (the worst one being the one i had when i was 15 years old, probably ate something silly, which lead to poisoning; i took the subway to downtown to see the family doctor, in high collared shirts and hat, because my body was literally full of angry red welts.  this resulted to gracious slap on the ass with a steroid shot, which sent everything away i...

o the rare days of sun in england this wee monkey had her shoulders out in the sun with its little hound teeth the sun left itty marks on pale monkey skin which have not seen the sun, working in the depth of indoors at the ivory tower. small odd heat bumps carrying the anger in size of sesami seeds looking like a constellation chart the monkey remembered the advise of experts: put your sunscreen on, before the sun eats you up! pondering at the aisle of magic potions of all colours shapes and of course, prices, she read the lables: sunsmart, oil-free, perfume-free, allergy-tested, anti-pimples, anti-aging, highest-rated, lost in fancy words, she picked one and exited the shop with people cheering after her: 'you will be beautiful! you are being careful!' all she wanted was to not be bitten with itty hound teeth of summer sun rays. the fact that the magic potion costed her a handsome sum, everyone chirped about the 'high quality' of the product. ...

people often ask how i got involved in music.  funny enough, i tell them: no, my parents arent musicians nor i was put to lessons at a tender young age.  i did wanted to go to a specialty arts schools but i wasnt allowed to audition, as only silly or really rich kids went there.  no, i didnt fall in love with piano, but with oboe; however, i wasnt encouraged nor allowed to have one. we did have a piano though so i started on piano.  hmm, organ- well, i did study for about 8 years but that's because i was one day hired to play an organ for sunday services at this massive church at age 14. yep. i was on the payroll. i remember feeling a bit confused in high school as i was not part of their music curriculum.  at that break where the preteens were taken into the band room and were asked to select an instrument, i was in my english-as-second-language class. by the time i have learned english, i have missed the boat totally to join music classes.  our high sch...

so the earth has gone around once again, and born as a sunday's child, this particular monkey celebrated her birthday on a friday, a bit groggy and still crumpled from the cross-pond journey.  i feel a bit wistful that i left yyz a day before the happy-not-dead-yet-day as i realized that it did matter to my maternal gene pool; you see, my b days were spent out of home most of the time (since i was 19 i think?) and not having too many friends in elementary school, as a reactionary, i never put much emphasis on birthdays. but i should have thought of it from mom's perspective- after losing gabe, i bet she's a bit more attached to the other two kiddies that she conceived, gave birth to and still continues to eat her love, if a bit messily (insert lots of cut-eyes and unpleasant phone exchanges). and yes, that's what it was- she wanted to do something for monkey. she wasnt saying 'you shouldve stayed' to make me sad, but really because she wanted me to stay. oops ...

recently, there was a small gathering with my banff flames in toronto- we got together and played some hot hot hot tango.  if i could dance like i play the tango, i think i would be a hot item. i love making comments like that only because i will never have to prove it! ha. however, i should explain that for some reason i have tried stay as far as i can from logistics (what a 'musician' thing to do, i know) and that should explain why i rarely do things on the out side of the box. my mad flutter was all the way in montreal. so what of the logistics? well, someone else decided to jump and be the all-one-can-be. hooray. let's just call her sexual-healing-shaman lady. im not making this up, this was the description of herself from last year. one does not argue or discuss such identity- well, i wont. and i never will. what if i get vexed with some hilarious sexual curse? fisting? no thanks! anyways, at the ripe age of 31, i suppose i do have an idea of how things roll in this...

today i ordered new glasses for dad.  he's been rather fond of the idea of paying the absolute minimum (as i have done) for the new glasses and finally, the other day, he was on the phone, eager to yell out those random numbers to me.  funny thing is that i think because he's seen both ends of internet glasses: success (i had three pairs that fitted me well) vs. fail (my bro's glasses were a slight misfit, somehow), as soon as he's been to the optometrist, he just had to see how it will turn out. well, little does he know. mom's been nudging, blackmailing, pleading, asking and appealing to me for weeks to get dad's glasses- with a catch: get him a stylish new one!  it has been somewhat traditional for koreans to spend quite a bit of money on appearance-related things, such as clothes, shoes, glasses, etc.  there are girls who eat package ramen noodles to save up for a designer bags.  ladies who spends dollars and more dollars on cosmetic procedures and 'c...

last couple weeks were some spectacular blur of things. i dont think i have eaten so many notes in a given time period- and i am somewhat glad for it, as i now have a better method of approaching speed-learning.  most performances had some good things to it, and of course, i look forward playing these pieces again- hindemith, strauss, jolivet, martinu, you name it.  some days began as early as 8am at the work bench and often i left while the custodians were having their 'lunch' break- near midnight. by the end, the stage didnt really bother me most of the time nor the microphones.  weirdly enough, the practice/rehearsals were more demanding and draining; i suppose that's the 'right' way to prep- to do the hard works so that one can actually perform.  i did drop many notes, enough to probably build gaudi-style tower of 'spontaneous misinterpretation.' ah well, at least it would be entertaining. and just like sangra familia, it'll go on, for days and week...