Movin' on Down the Road. Literally.

Since my auditions are now over, I now wait to hear back from schools.  Meanwhile, I continue my tasks for Radius and I search for another part-time job while everywhere is shutting the doors to their own current employees.  Despite the negativity in the slumping economy, I have scored a journalism internship and found out that I was accepted with a scholarship (in the voice of Napoleon Dynamite: yesssssssss!) to participate in a nonfiction writing workshop for two weeks this summer...in the city of Prague!!!  

To document things in an organized fashion, here are some stories as of late.

(By the way, why won't this blog website let me make charts?  Anyone know?)

My friend Andy from Oregon, who plays French horn, came to Boston last week for his audition at the New England Conservatory. We happened to walk in on a concert and during intermission we went back stage where Andy chatted with another student and I...well, I watched.  But later I was glad not to have been involved in social networking.

Once we were ready to leave, I pushed open one of the double doors, and stepped back when a bright red light crashed into my pupils. “WWWWAAAAHH WAAAAAHHW FIRE ALARM IS ON PLEASE EVACUATE WAAHWAAAH”
When I backed away I discovered something surprisingly not surprising: the door had a sign read “Emergency exit ONLY.” ☺
I turned around and the room of 50 something musicians all had their eyes were on me with fierce hatred.
“Didn’t you see the sign!?”
“Oh,” I said. “Wow, um, I’m so sorry! It’ll go off right?”
“Leave!”
“Just get out!”
“Go out the way you came in!”
“But…but, okay but..”
“Seriously, just get out.”
“GET OUT!”
“So,” I said to Andy as we hightail it away from the building. “What’s your most embarrassing moment?”
“Can’t think of any quite as good.”

I was in the big apple for the weekend, meeting up with friends I met in Israel, and overall having a lot of fun.  Plus my audition, the main thing I went there for, which lasted for about 6 minutes.  

Leaving New York on Sunday night, it started to snow on Canal Street in Chinatown, where I stood on the side of the road holding my box of 100 green teas for $4, my stomach full of dim sum, and waiting for the Fung Wah bus, the $15 bargain that goes directly from New York to Boston.
A young father walked from his four screaming children toward the Chinese lady wearing a "Fung Wah Bus Staff" jacket.
“Excuse me, but I bought our tickets for 7:15 and it is already 7:45. My kids are cold and hungry. When is the bus coming?”
“Bus come in five minutes!  They just called me, they're coming right now!”
Five minutes later, another woman approached the Chinese lady.
“Excuse me, but I bought my ticket for 7:15 and…”
“You missed the bus, you got here too late,” she said.
“But, I’ve been here since…”
“No! You walk too slow!”

Ten minutes later, I saw another woman and the Chinese lady on the verge of a physical fight. The mystery of the changing story is concerning.  Is it the snow that is delaying it?  Is it safe to even drive a bus in the snow storm?  Would I be better off stranded in New York?

You get what you pay for, apparently, according to a young man standing in the back of the angry crowd, not concerned.  At last, when the snow began to plummet down in big thick flakes, the bus arrived.  Though finding a seat that the Chinese lady approved of was difficult ("You no put your stuff there, I need full bus!), I made it back to Boston. 

Speaking of snow. 

So, winter is part of the experience right? Yes, dammit. It is fun. 
I knew that this winter would either bring out my total wimpiness, or a newly found endurance.  This has been what people are saying is the worst in 30 years. So, on that note, IT CAN STOP SNOWING NOW, I think as I pound my shovel on the snow-turned-ice around my car, pouring on the useless ice-melting crap as my landlord yells at me from the doorstep: “why don’t you move your car out onto the street and THEN clean it off? You guys just put all the snow in the walkway for ME to shovel and that ain’t right!”
And I respond quietly and sweetly:
“I HAVEN’T MOVED MY CAR IN TWO WEEKS YOU JERK AND IT IS NOT MY FAULT THAT THERE IS SNOW ON YOUR GODDAMNED DOORSTEP WHY DON’T YOU TRY WEARING HIGH HEELS ON THE ICE AND I’M SO SORRY YOU EVER HAVE TO DO ANYTHING FOR THE BENEFIT OF YOUR TENANTS!” (actually I didn’t really say that, unfortunately).

Then I continue shoveling, throwing some of the snow into the bushes, and some more into the walkway (yes indeed, just out of spite).  Then I start the car and when I press the gas the wheels struggle, spinning but not propelling my poor little California Carolla who seems to be screaming “Liz, this is too much” out of the driveway.  A a gust of gas enters the air, ice chunks fly out into the street, hitting pedestrians...where was I going with this again?

Anyway, each audition released a rush of endorphins and now I am kind of sad, but tremendously curious.  What will happen?  Did I make the right choices of schools?  Am I really doing the right thing?  Should I join the peace corps?  Should I move to Europe and teach English?  Just as I am beginning to feel roots sprout in Boston, am I going to have to leave it?  Even though I can't read signs and set off alarms in the middle of concerts, am I meant to be a musician?  

Is this really the time of life, full of confusion and anxiety and terror and adventure, that people miss the most?  Am I asking too many annoying philosophical questions that have no answers just because I am too overly analytical?  Perhaps that last question is the easiest to answer.   

I have some big decisions to make and am ready to make them, but then there’s the next challenge - to make the right decisions, if there even is such a concept.