the day I realized i lost my glasses....

This is the time of year I dread the most....the last few weeks of class when your life becomes a crazy whirl wind mess of assignments, tests, fast food, coffee, and comfort food (in my case, cookies). This time time of year makes me afraid of what's to come. I fear each moment, until each moment passes me and I can relax a little bit.

Slowly but surely....the end will come and there will be a place to catch my breath.

So, it's in times like this that my life gets crazy. I stay up late working on projects I've been putting off, my room becomes a hopeless disaster, the dishes pile up, I watch too much tv, don't do enough work, and lastly - I lose things. This time, I realize, it's my glasses - oddly enough. My glasses, with which I view the world (or the computer screen at least) have fallen off my radar.

I've become an absent-minded nutcase.

So here I am - at 2:42 in the morning, sipping white chardonnay from my neighbour and writing on my blog when I should be finishing my assignment. That's right....I'm a nutcase....agh.

It'll all be over soon!

xo A

in the wee small hours...

It's a time of day that I cherish - the hours before the city wakes up to greet the day with the hustle and bustle of everyday life. It's the quiet and the feeling tranquility that only exist before 8am. It's the only time when I can cross Dundas without thinking and walk down Bathurst without my thoughts being drown out by traffic. The air is cool and the atmosphere is peaceful.

And every Wednesday....I'm walking to meet my girl Mel for coffee. It's an early morning ritual that keeps me on track. I look forward to it - each week a new coffee shop, as well as new stories to dish about life, love and lovers. And did I mention food? There's always talk of food.

And on that note my stomach is rumbling and it's time to go and meet my Mel. Oooooooooo look at that alliteration! In the midst of this crazy week of performances, tests and assignments this morning's coffee date is a beautiful abyss (as difficult as it was to escape the warmth of my bed).

And did I mention I finally got my bike fixed? That means cool morning air against my cheeks - and beautiful rosy glow. Gotta love that.

-A xo

making change

The last few weeks have been a challenge at best, but I can see a hint of light off in the distance. Change is coming - but lord does it ever take it's time coming. It's funny how quickly you can find yourself buried without even really realizing it. I've managed to bury myself in my emotions these last few weeks. I allowed myself to let go. My room is messy, my dishes dirty, my body angry with me for over-indulging and crying for exercise, and most of all my mind is swimming in the aftermath of the storm that I found myself in.

My change will come in baby steps, but with the help of good friends and a positive frame of mind I think I can do it. I think I can, I think I can.

Here's to a new day.

Stuck

I can't remember a time in my life when I didn't wish to speak - a time where there was no feeling I wish to express using words spoken with tongue, projected with my breath. My emotional response to feelings such as happiness, joy, excitment, sadness, anxiety, anger, confusion (anything really) has also come tumbling out of my mouth in a cascade of words and strung together to articulate my feelings. I'm told that it's one of my greatest gifts, my ability to express myself. Sometimes it is of great use, and other times it gets me into trouble but at the end of the day what it always does is get me through.

Strangely enough though, right now I have no words. Me. The person with all the words. The person who always has something to say and no censor for what comes out.

It's the first time that I can remember where I really just don't want to talk about it. I can't be bothered to open my mouth and spew out this emotional garbage and move on. I feel trapped inside my body with a feeling that I've never really known before - grief. There's nothing I can do about it, it's as if it's infected every cell in my body and I don't even want to move. It's disabled me, and my coping mechanisms. It's rendered me completely and utterly useless.

Useless. As in watch bad TV online useless. As in, can't bring myself to finish my arranging assignment or clean my disgusting room useless. I can't stand it but I can't shake it either. I'm stuck in the middle and I can't commit to one side or the other.

Falling Behind

It's funny I titled this "Falling Behind" because I feel like I'm falling behind in a basic material way - leaving my homework to the last minute, failing to blog for AAAAAAAAAAAGES and forgetting things, but in a completely separate way I feel like I'm getting ahead.....

Let me explain. I know all the things that I should have done. I should've finished listening to all those CD's by now, I should've gone over the chord changes to Dearly Beloved more before my gig tonight, I shouldn't have left my arranging assignment till the weekend before but the remarkable thing is that I don't care.

It's not that I actually don't care about those things because in actual fact I do. A lot. The fact is that I'm ahead because I can finally see those mistakes, take them for what they are, learn from them and most importantly not beat myself up for it. Tonight, for example, I played my first gig of the school year with my school ensemble in the concert hall. We played an arrangement I did for the tune Dearly Beloved. I was the first to solo, it was the first tune of the night, I was the first person to solo and the fact is my solo really wasn't happening. The entire time I absolutely knew that it was because I didn't know the changes well enough and it was too fast to be able to earball my way through. And that was it.

Now normally, that one solo would taint the entire performance for me in my mind and diminish all of the wonderful successful parts of the performance as a whole. However, tonight it doesn't bother me. I still feel great about the concert, and even about the tune Dearly Beloved because I know that that solo didn't have to be perfect. It is an idication of what I need to work on - and that is learning the changes to the tunes I'm playing. The fact is, I'm tired of living in denial and making excuses. What's the point in making an excuse for why you failed to do something correctly? That doesn't promote personal growth. It promotes weakness. Why not admit to your weakness, address it and then go home and work at what it was that you screwed up on? It seems ridiculously obvious but to be honest that place of denial is so common. All you have to do to fix it - man up and be aware.

I feel like so many people are completely content to be blissfully unaware of what is happening in their lives and around them and therefore fail to grow. They screw up, blame it on the weather and go home and watch t.v.

So on that note, I will admit that I screw up. And now, I'm going to go work on the changes to Dearly Beloved. Problem solved.

Sweet Dreams,
Ange xo

Leaves of the fall...

It's 10:08 precisely and I'm sitting in my apartment enjoying a hot mug of Genmaicha tea and the sweet sounds of Miles Davis' record Sketches of Spain. It's a good morning. In the last week Toronto has transformed from a paradise of 20 degree sunny late summer days to a crisp, cool vision of fall. It's fall, officially and my favourite season. Period.

It's the time of year when I wake up in my bed, cozy and warm and with great difficulty tear myself from my safe cocoon. The crisp morning air wakes me up as walk to school and when I finally arrive my cheeks have rosy glow. The leaves change to glorious shades of yellow, red and orange and dance around my feet on the ground as I walk through the beautiful u of t campus that I call home.

Fall to me signifies new beginnings. Fresh starts. The leaves turn colour and fall to the ground making way for new life to take its place the following spring. Guys may not get this one, but girls, it's like when you wash your face before you apply a facial mask. Clean away the impurities before you apply the mask, then you leave the mask on for however long is necessary, then wash it off to reveal amazing skin. It's exactly like the seasons! Fall cleans away all the leaves and flowers from the previous year so that the snow can coat the land for next few months, only to reveal Mother Nature in all her glory the following spring.

Glorious! What a glorious season. On the topic of glorious, I feel like Sketches of Spain is a glorious album to be listening to has I think about fall. The album is a big band album put together by Miles Davis and Gil Evans and it is beautiful. Absolutely stunning. If I were to give it a season it would be fall, red, orange, yellow and glorious. It's dark and brooding and haunting but so beautiful and exotic. Favourite track: most clearly Concierto de Aranjuez. Miles is absolutely captivating on this track, and this entire album really.

ahhhh fall. How I love you.

If only I had E.S.P....

Time is going by far too quickly and it's clear that I have some catching up to do on this listening if I want to get it done in time! My friends have been asking where I'm at in the count, and I'm a little bit ashamed to say I'm sitting at a mere 8 discs, with many more to go and not so many days to finish. However, I refuse to give into my usual vices and sit around watching Veronica Mars and snacking on banana loaf and fried apples. I'm going to finish this thing that I've started because in fact, I do enjoy it.

On Friday I listened to the John Coltrane album Blue Train but found myself rather quickly succumbing to the sweet thought of sleep. But alas! I have not forgotten. Blue Train. It's an album filled with standards that I actually know, which was what I found most surprising about the album. It features Lee Morgan on Trumpet, Curtis Fuller on Trombone, Coltrane on Tenor Sax, Kenny Drew on Piano, Paul Chambers on Bass and Philly Joe Jones on Drums. Who stood out to me aside from Coltrane (obviously) was Curtis Fuller. I can count the times on one hand that I've listened to a Trombone player and checked the disc to find out who it was because I liked it so much.

This album featured the title track Blue Train, Locomotion , I'm Old Fashioned, Lazy Bird and one of my personal fav's Moment's Notice. Great album. Thumbs up people.

Onto the next...

E.S.P. by Miles Davis. Featuring:
Miles Davis - Trumpet
Wayne Shorter - Tenor Sax
Herbie Hancock - Piano
Ron Carter - Bass
Tony Williams - Drums

This album is definitely a step in a different direction for Miles when I compare it to 'Round About Midnight which he recorded 9 years earlier. A new group with a very different vibe. Tony Williams adds a totally different feel on the drums. Not to mention the arrangments and compositions are much different too this time around. My favourite track on the album was a composition by Wayne Shorter entitled "Iris". It's beautiful and simple. A beautiful ballad in 3/4.