Earplugs, anyone?

I just got done with our last University Symphony Orchestra concert for the semester. I walked out of the hall feeling like I'd been covered in emotional vomit, but in the best possible sense. Explanation: Verdi, Rachmaninoff and Respighi. It was fun and oh so dramatic and exhuberant and LOUD. It can be very gratifying to play as loud as possible, especially with a double brass section (complete with a special crack team of off-stage trumpets), an organ, and ten percussionists backing you up. The opening of "Feste Romane" is especially brash--it's about the Romans throwing Christians to the lions. Very apt for Ann Arbor. The highlight of the evening, though, was definitely the solo pianist's tux. It was cream-colored with crazy silver embroidering on the lapels and cuffs, topped off with tennis shoes sans socks. Sometimes I feel jealous that guys are the ones who get to wear tuxes--there are so many possibilities for being creative.

That was just the beginning. The conductor hosted a party at the local pizza joint (outlandishly named "Pizza House") for the orchestra and friends. These parties consist of me sitting at a table nursing a cold one (rootbeer) and watching everyone slowly, or quickly, get trashed. I stayed for the whole party this time, which I've never been done before, and was one of the last to leave. On my way out I got a very emotional (and odoriferous) hug from one of the violists and got to see our conductor at his most inebriated. Interesting thing, alcohol.

Oh, and I've decided I want to be some crazy archive lady who putters around in the musty, dimly-lit basement of some library amongst stacks of dusty old books and wears the same cardigan to work each day and has strange socks and has some kind of nervous tic from not getting out enough. Or a monkey. Yeah.

Do you think polka dots have anything to do with polka the dance?