A lot of little thoughts coursing around lately up top, but none of them really long enough or coherent enough to make up a post! I’m really enjoying playing Dragon Age at present; I have a sweetly-determined looking (and behaving) Dalish rogue who is on good terms with everyone and constantly saving the day. I’m just waiting for the other Elven fellow to add to my party so I can romance him. Adam’s running with a maudlin looking city-elf warrior and we play alongside each other to get as close to the multiplayer feeling as possible. Alas, we’ll have to return to Baldur’s Gate and Icewind Dale for our dose of Forgotten Realms adventuring together! That’s actually what we did the very first night we met, having BG2 as a mutual favourite game. As is Morrowind and Vampire: The Masquerade! If we had any more in common, it would almost get boring!

It has been an uncommonly busy week for me, which means that by normal-people standards I’ve had a light load. For someone with a musculoskeletal pain and fatigue disorder however, it means I’m a bit worn out. Saturday saw the women’s convention pass, and naturally those things are never as bad as I fear. I went away feeling quite thoughtful and my grandmother was very happy to have been taken and have company. I was invited to see Mascagni’s Cavaleria Rusticana and Leoncavallo’s Pagliacci by the Melbourne Opera Company (in which a good friend’s parents both sing) and really wanted to get there (that Intermezzo is so sweet!)… couldn’t muster up the energy to drive though! It’s still showing but there are a number of upcoming expenses I should really dedicate my finances to. Honouring ones responsibilities means making sacrifices.

On Sunday there was another rather long recital, a Springtime afternoon to see the high standard of progress being made by all students and also for those taking exams to get extra performing experience. I played the same as the previous week but went in a lot more confidently. The room and audience and my being more sensitively aware of things made a huge difference and my teacher was quite complimentary the next day in my last lesson for the term. My progress has been rather sluggish this year but things are picking up with the better weather and I am focusing on being consistent.

Tuesday and Wednesday saw my participation in a rehearsal and show at a local theatre. I say that in a very broad sense, because in fact it was laid-back display of the ‘wearable art’ of various students at Box Hill TAFE. An elder sister is taking a floristry course and her group collaborated on an ensemble which I was asked very nicely to ‘model’ for them. Though unlike anything I have ever worn yet, the wire/scissors/parafilm/fairylights combination made quite an impression for being rather distinctly different. And of course sparkly. Instead of wearing a floral arrangement, I was basically decked out in pieces made of tools you would use in floristry. The whole event was filmed and I shall have pictures soon. It was quite enjoyable and I’m glad to have been of some use; most of the others looked very interesting but didn’t seem very confident about having to show off on stage.

This evening I was invited to the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s ‘A Miracle Year’ programme, conducted by Mark Wigglesworth, which celebrated the music of 1910. Sibelius’ 4th symphony was, as expected, not particularly evocative or predictable, but dark and in rebellion to the other music of that time. Our minds were not particularly engaged, constantly wandering throughout those 40 or so minutes. Ravel’s Mother Goose Suite followed, delicate and very very lovely at times. Finally we had our senses awoken by Strauss’ Der Rosenkavalier Suite (a concert version of the comic opera of the same name). It was typically Strauss; the orchestra were more impassioned, luxuriously romantic, and soaring to excitable moments over and over. There was no ceasing to the applause, even with a rather elderly demographic, so they gave us an encore of a march by Sousa.

I’ll be back to my usual introspection and miscellaneous thoughts in a few days. I’m resting in preparation for a chartered cruise on the Enterprize, in honour of International Talk Like a Pirate Day. Hmm.

I am off now to keep reading Roverandom to Adam. We’ve been making bedtime stories out of everything Tolkien this year. He’s listened to me narrate the entirety of The Hobbit, The Lord of the Rings, and The Silmarillion and now seems to really understands my reverence (and almost adherence) to the mythology. He got passionately angry at Fëanor and most of his sons (we reserve a special place for poor Maedhros), thoroughly depressed at the end of the Nírnaeth Arnoediad, and we both finished ‘Of Beren and Lúthien’ in tears. I would never attempt to describe my near-enslavement to the world of Arda. Certainly Tolkien himself wouldn’t have approved. He did not particularly like the idea of folk getting carried away meeting up to ‘speak Elvish’ and such. At this point I look away with a benign smile and feign complete innocence in the matter.