a series of unfortunate decisions

Looking back, I think the day's first mistake might have been my answering emails, checking facebook, and sitting around at breakfast instead of practicing cello before my lesson this morning. Or at least running through my assignment once or twice, you know, since I hadn't really practiced anything worth mentioning since last week's lesson.

(Don't look at me like that ... I had my reasons. Good ones. Like funerals and being out of state and helping clean up our yard after a massive storm.)

Turns out, though, that music teachers like their students to have practiced (or at least looked at) their songs between lessons. Interesting philosophy. Maybe I should try it out on my piano students. Yes, I have students.

fireflies are magic

His earnestness and childish enthusiasm caught me a little off guard. He was a child, but one of those children who act, generally, a little too old for their age, maybe a little too cynical. I suppose he came by it honestly enough.

But tonight, when I found him trotting around the kitchen just before bedtime, he immediately enjoined, "I caught six lightning bugs!"

"Oh, yeah?" I said, looking around vaguely for a jar. "Where are they?"

"I let them go in here!" he said happily.

Like the irresponsible non-parent I persist in being, I found this only momentarily unsettling. "What?" I said.

And in a more inquisitive tone, he replied in kind: "What?"

"That's just not exactly standard procedure," I said, following an instant's thoughtful pause.

three little thoughts

Whenever I open my checkbook to balance it, whenever I set out to update my perpetual stash of dreaded paperwork, whenever my eye wanders carelessly over to that pile of unsorted newsletters and bank statements on my over-loaded dresser ... something funny temporarily takes over my worldview. The only good thing I can think of to say about it is that it most certainly expands my capacity for enjoyment in life. Faced with any (or, occasionally, all) of the above-mentioned tasks, I am suddenly struck by the hitherto-unnoticed allure of almost innumerable other activities. Very nearly all other activities, as a matter of fact.