music(ology) life

I’ve been absent from here for a while, for lots of reasons. Mostly good. But recently I’ve had a lot of happy and sad.

The biggest thing? My husband and I will be welcoming our first child by the end of this month. Overwhelming? Yes. Exciting? Yes. Everything has gone smoothly so far, so send your good vibes and such for my next few weeks. I feel like I’m incubating a beach ball, though for now I’m still walking the dogs just about every day and functioning. Steve has done a ton of work the last few weeks getting the kiddo’s room renovated and I’m very proud of and thankful for him.

I found out that my dad might have bladder cancer. He hasn’t been terribly well for a while but finally ended up in the ER with bloody urine and pain. He had a first urology appointment last week; I’m still waiting to hear what came of it. I’m told it’s a relatively treatable cancer, as long as it hasn’t gotten too far.

We took an emergency vet trip last week for Fritz, who was diagnosed with some urinary problems. The pH of his urine (I think) is too high and needs to be more acidic. He’s supposed to be on a prescription diet but for now he’s just been switched to Purina’s version of the urinary health formula because the legit stuff is SO expensive and I can’t get Steve to go for it. Honestly, I was a little overwhelmed but I don’t know, just instinctively move to take care of the creatures that live in my house.

I lost my job teaching band. That’s the short version. The long version is that I was supposedly only hired because I’d be working with my husband who is a certified teacher, where I’m not. The truth is that the school is so cheap and unwilling to pay a music teacher fairly, that without both the band and general music positions to offer a single person, they’d never find someone. It’s a cruel joke, though it’s mostly on them because everybody knows I did a damn good job and I won’t hesitate to tell my now-former students and their parents the truth about why I’m leaving. I need to do it soon, though; I don’t trust the administration at the school and suspect that they might lie and tell them I left for personal reasons, which would be easy. Part of me also wants to tempt that to happen, so I can further discredit them.

Not everything’s shitty. I’m teaching lessons at home still. I can comfortably be friends with some students’ parents who I really liked but previously hesitated to reach out to, even though I knew that ultimately my tenure as a teacher would be shorter than a real friendship regardless. I’ll have infinitely more freedom and the privilege of being able to raise my child until she’s old enough to go to pre-school, while still being a musician on the weekends and a teacher here and there. It’ll give me the chance to figure out what to do with my life- long story short, the shitty Catholic diocese I work for will be consolidating parishes in the coming 1-2 years so I’m hoping to have a new career path (even if it’s still in music/education) before that happens so I can comfortably lose my music director job or choose to leave it. Working for the Catholic church is a hot disaster mess. It’s not as oppressive or discriminatory on a daily basis as more conservative/evangelical-type churches, but it’s certainly nowhere near progressive and at least here, doesn’t do shit for the community. All talk, no action, but for now they pay me to play music so I stay.

But yeah, not all bad.

One of my very best friends just got engaged. I am incredibly happy for her. Even though I’ve only met her fiancé once, I liked him a lot and am happy to welcome him permanently into our circle of friends.

My sister is getting married in September. My other sister graduated from grad school in May. They’re doing well, I think. Living on their own, building their lives. I hope I’ll be able to see them more after the baby comes.

is on Netflix in the US now.

If your voting process went like this: “Meh, I just don’t *like* Hillary. Trump is scary but I hope he won’t, like start a war, lol”

and not this:

“Voting for the Republican candidate will take away a number of my own human rights so I can’t do that and I wish my friends wouldn’t either,”