How The Grinch Stole Xmas

I'm kind of proud of myself right now and you should be too. Not proud of yourselves, of course; you're a rather shameful bunch all around. No, you fools, you should be proud of ME! Here's why:

So I was reasonably sure that Ali Jones' senior recital was today. Seeing as I'd already missed Joe Trucano's (sp?) and Heather Mastel-Lipson's, I felt kinda bad missing the last one. On the other hand, it was raining outside, and recitals tend to be kind of boring. I was at an impasse. Suddenly a solution presented itself, in the form of an idea...an awful idea. A perfectly, wonderfully, AWFUL idea!

I'd have my cake and eat it too. For you see, Ali Jones had neglected to give me an invitation/personally invite me to the the recital, AND I owed her an email regarding the lowell reunion party. SO, I could write the email in the late afternoon and include an innocent looking post-script, mentioning how "Joey and Heather had had recitals recently, will you be having one too? I'd like ever so much to come." Then she reads that when she gets back from the recital, feels guilty about it and apologizes...when I'M the one who skipped HER recital! Bwahahahhahahahhahahaha!

But my grandma called about dinner and mentioned something about the recital, and I reflected on the fact that I hadn't had any non-parental human contact all weekend. I don't have Sam Walker's strength, so I gave in to social (and I suppose a teensy bit of moral) pressure, gave up my elegant but evil plot and attended the recital. Aren't you all proud of me?

In reality, the recital was highly enjoyable. Honestly, I'm not that big of a fan of classical music. If I'm not playing it, or at least don't have the music in front of me, I have a hard time finding patterns or following themes, which I've usually gotta do if I'm not going to get bored. But today's performance was more fun, for a couple of reasons:

1. I'm not that familiar with string instruments, so I got to ponder a lot of interesting, though in retrospect shamefully nerdy, questions. For example: "How do they lay the strings out so you can play each one individually?" (answer: convex polygon formation), or "What would the graph of the bow's progress over the string over time look like? How about it's derivative? What does the area under the curve represent?" (answer: I have been doing far too much calculus lately. Also, judging by my math-based thoughts in the presence of beautiful music, I apparently lack a soul.)
2. It's fun to watch cellists perform. There's lots of motion and action, both in the bow and in the hand on the strings, much more interesting than just pushing down valves or keys. I imagine it's just as complex to play the violin, but in that case the action is a lot harder to see.


P.S.: I've haven't been to tennis pratice in two weeks. This is getting ridiculous.