Some interesting things I've learned from my students this year, in no particular order:

• If you lay a strip of duct tape sticky side up on the road and someone drives over it, it will sound to them like they have a flat tire, and they'll pull over.
• The night before Halloween is "Mischief Night". The cops are taking the night off because they'll be working overtime on Halloween, so if you want to TP people's houses, you should do it the night before Halloween.
• If you go trick-or-treating wearing nothing but a cape, and hold your bag in front of you, lots of people won't notice that you're naked until you turn around (if the wind is blowing).
• You can play a fun game by "collecting" school ID cards from students who "aren't using them" and use them as you would Magic cards.
• If you're bored in class, get the teacher really mad at you so he kicks you out, and then cut school instead of going to the office.

These are just a few that sprang to mind. Reviewing them, I'm very relieved that my students 1) are alive, 2) are not in jail (yet), and 3) are in my class doing actual work instead of what they're doing the rest of the day.

The toaster is back online. I wish I could claim some kind of intellectual wizardry, but all I did was take it apart, give the circuit board a look that told it I meant business, and then did what I'm not supposed to do: plugged the thing in so I could play with it while it was apart. It worked perfectly. I think I intimidated it.

In apple news, the Black Oxford has edged out the Canadian Strawberry and the Esopus Spitzenburg (sadly...) for a place in the yard. I'm still trying to work out how I can squeeze a Canadian Strawberry in, but I figured I'd get the Oxford in first while I ponder that. The Black Oxford won because its best eating is December - March, the time of year when the only organic apples I can get in the store are from New Zealand. Maybe I'll also order a few hardy kiwi vines and then call it good...need to get my order into the Portland Permaculture group's order to get in on the bulk discount.

Tango is a kissing culture: hi, how are you, kiss, kiss. I didn't really like it in San Francisco because I felt like it was kind of phony and that bothered me. I love it in Portland because I love the people I dance with. Tonight A. and K. had a housewarming party at their great apartment on Munjoy Hill, and after getting to meet a bunch of folks I didn't know, I found Liz out back in the kitchen. After a while all of TML was in there (how does that happen?) and then a couple of other tango dancers. P. showed off his always uncanny knowledge of astrology. He is really, really good at it. It's scary. And his gestures were gut-bustingly ridiculous at times. After a while more tango folks were in the kitchen, and then dancing started in the living room and then a bit later only the tango crowd was still around. Warm people. Kissing them is fine.

I brought my Fender electric violin with me to Saturday night's TML gig, along with Z's amp that Mike gave me to try out (Z is trying to sell it) so that I could plug a direct line into Mike's loop pedal for Reflejo de Luna. My brother gave me the Fender for Christmas just before I was paralyzed, and for many years I couldn't play it because the thing is so freakin' heavy. It's mostly solid body. I figured I could handle it for one song, though, so I hauled it along.

As we were setting up, Z arrived to pick up something from Mike and said "hey, I have a gig down the street but I don't care what kind of violin I play. I have my [insert name of some fancy electric violin that I promptly forgot] here--want to switch electrics?" (p.s. he's trying to sell it so he can go back to an acoustic). Two minutes later I had gotten out the chinrest wrench and switched our chinrests, and off he went with my Fender while I got to noodle around on this very cool violin.

I like it because it's much lighter than the fender, and the proportions must be similar to my Kagansky (acoustic) because it felt very natural to play it. I played the whole gig on it. It is still heavier than the acoustic and it did make my neck hurt enough that I couldn't really enjoy dancing after we finished, just before midnight. But some of my neck tension was probably due to the fact that, because of the way the speakers were set up, and because the electric puts out only a tiny sound under my ear, I couldn't hear myself at all. It's a really weird sensation to be playing the violin and not know how it sounds. Yuck.

And shoot, wouldn't you know it, I had a chance to dance intense tango that night and couldn't because my neck felt crappy. Argh.

But that violin is reallllly cool anyway. I'll try it out at North Star this month, I hope.

Magic is the moment of intense silliness that happens when you can't figure out how you know the girl 4 feet from you when you're waiting for a table at the restaurant downstairs from your gig, and who is the girl next to her? She looks familiar too. And then two guys walk in and you think "OH! Austin Powers Stewardess, Queen Elizabeth, Dionysius, Abercrombie & Fitch Model!" And you walk over and say "Hi, I'm Superwoman." And everyone says "OOOOOHHHHH, we were trying to figure out how we knew you." Worlds colliding. That's magic.

Not as magical as today, though. Last night (or this morning at 2:00) A was helping us carry sound equipment to Mike's truck. A was M's girlfriend after me and has only relatively recently become his ex-girlfriend. She is sooooo cool. But we hadn't quite connected yet. "See you later this morning at M's brunch?" I asked. No, she was going cranberry picking north of Augusta. "Want to come along?" Yes.

Magic is driving up north with A (joined later by K) to the camp of the parents of a guy A met once, donning rubber boots, getting in canoes, canoeing across the lake and around the point, pulling the canoes out at the edge of a bog, and picking cranberries. Feeling the bog pull at your boots. Hearing the lapping of the lake. Eating a lunch of wheat, dairy and sugar (oops). Finding out that fermenting is cool and we should all get together and make kombucha sometime soon. Heading across the bog to find more berry spots ("don't step on the pitcher plants, they're endangered. They're carnivorous"). And when suddenly it seems like everywhere you want to put your free foot there's a pitcher plant? Then the berries get really good, dark red and as big as small grapes. Staying too late (it's hard to stop...) and canoeing back in the dusk. Hanging out eating chips with a host who really is magic--because he is simultaneously the most staid and the most mercurial of people. Is there anything he hasn't tried? Talking into the evening with people who like to think about things and laugh. And finally connecting.

If we had been able to just walk over to the cranberry bog, it wouldn't have been nearly as magical as it was. It took some effort and planning to get there, and part of the fabulousness of it was the journey there and back.

The other part was that everybody was enjoying the journey required to get there. That enjoyment is something that's missing in a lot of people these days. It's too easy to just buy what you want, watch TV, never having to think of working steadily at something. Kids come for a violin lesson thinking that they'll be able to play the violin in one lesson.

Not that I want to make people's lives harder. But enjoying working for something...riding a bike to the ferry instead of taking the car. Even something as little as that. Making your own cheese. Whatever. I want to know more of those magical people who look at effort as intrinsic reward.

I figured, let them write on the whiteboard if they want to--as long as it's educational.

When I was 16 or 17 I used to drive myself to Boston every Sunday to play in the Greater Boston Youth Symphony. There was this one part of the trip, when I came off an exit ramp into a horrible crossover on/off ramp that shot me onto Route 128. At that moment the sun was always in a terrible place and everyone was going 10 or 15 miles over the speed limit and cutting each other off and the lanes were really narrow and there was no shoulder. It always reminded me of those diagrams in Physics class about amperes vs. volts and what happens when you decrease the size of the "stream" but leave the same amount of water running through it.

At first, I would have a moment of panic. But I quickly learned that the key was to psych myself into thinking that all of this craziness was completely normal. After a few minutes I would settle into it, having ramped my mind up to it, and then suddenly everything seemed slower and wider.

As grades close for the first quarter, I've reached that same place. Kids have settled in, I've settled in, I've gotten used to when I'll grade assignments and what's important to do immediately vs. what can wait. I've gotten used to the crazy pace of life during the school year. I feel like it took longer this year than it did last year, but that I'm much more relaxed this year. I'm more relaxed teaching violin, too, because this year I'm starting to see amazing improvement from students and I'm starting to see patterns in how I teach and what works the best.

Now if I can just get through Nutcracker without another nervous breakdown...although last year it made me discover the Forehead, which ended up being a crucial part of my violin teaching technique. This year I'm hoping to meditate my way through 2 hours of Nutcracker first violin part. If I can do that, I'll really be cooking. High-powered meditation. I think it does exist.

Tonight, after violin lessons, was a continuation of the dejunking effort. I tackled a portion of the storage space upstairs under the eaves. Books and notebooks and papers. Came across my journals from high school and shredded them without reading them. Reliving adolescent angst? No thanks... Every once in a while I would catch a glimpse of something and wince or snort at it. Thank goodness those are out of the house and gone to be recycled.

Also put on the to-go list: 2 hospital-issue canes from 2001. I saved them because I might need them again, but seeing them back there was a little depressing. Out they go. I'm sure someone else can use them right now.

Right now in class we're doing exercises in "negative space". For example, on Thursday I had everyone draw a chair--except that we weren't allowed to draw the chair. Instead, we had to draw the space around the chair. My drawings came out very well, but they were really difficult for me. I think I used the eraser more than the pencil (oh, I guess that's technically not possible...but whatevah). That brain switch is still hard for me to achieve when I'm in school teaching.

Tonight I took a crack at Act I of Nutcracker and noticed that the idea of negative space is also affecting how I play the violin these days: thinking about the motion between notes makes the notes themselves sound better with less work. Standing in rest position, turning on the metronome, and feeling my fingers (and whole body posture) while I read through a difficult section focuses me so completely that I end up only having to practice a section a few times before it's right. I'm starting to feel like the times when I'm not playing are more important than the times I am playing.

All of this work is making me really intense in almost all areas of my life now that I've experienced it in drawing and violin. Kind of a scary thought, since I'm way intense already.

The viburnum tried to die this Spring. And then it tried to produce a gazillion little suckers. I thinned them to the ones that looked the most promising, planted a bunch of scarlet runner beans around them (I left the old dead tall branches for bean supports), mulched the whole lot, and left it for the summer, hoping that the beans would fix nitrogen for the struggling viburnum.

Today I cut down the dead part and then got busy with the pruning saw in other parts of the yard (dead larch in the back). Finally planted the daylilies my mom gave me, carted tons of mulch hay around, and dragged the logs from Apple Tree Avenue to use as edging for my keyhole bed. Then I was tired. Then my mom called and said "Merry Christmas! 3 yards of mulch will be delivered to your house on Monday." My mom is the best.

Inside, I shelled the dry pods of the scarlet runners. I think I'll save them until Spring, when I can inoculate them and plant them with the hazelnut seedlings for a living windbreak.

I left my afternoon session with an Ed. Tech. for 30 minutes today so I could go down the hall to the Dance classroom and show them some tango basics. It's so fun to teach dancers who already know where their centers are and can stand on one leg and be balanced. Just 30 minutes of breathing and beautiful posture and spinal twisting (pivoting on rubber in bare feet is only slightly easier than pivoting in sneakers on pavement--either one is a total ab workout unless you want to blow your knees out) made me feel so energized that after school I decided to swing by the Maine Educators evening at the Portland Museum of Art. The lecture tonight was on the current photography exhibit, photos from the collection of Judy Glickman. There were some really nice pieces. I may have to go back there on Friday evening for another look.

After walking through the exhibit I scooted down the hill to Liz's for TML rehearsal. Z stopped by while we were "rehearsing" (eating, talking, eating more, talking more, eating cookies, tal--). Z: "are you guys going to actually play at some point?" Appropriate response: ¡Tango Mucha Labia! Z played along on Se Dice de Mí and oooooh am I jealous at his fast fingers and amazing left hand technique. That is going to give me a kick in the pants (if I would ever have time to practice these days).

Then I convinced all TML members (even Mike! Woo!) to put on lipstick and kiss a piece of paper so we could figure out whose pucker will be part of the TML branding idea. Tina definitely has the nicest looking smooch. I accidentally used dishwashing liquid to get the lipstick off afterwards (I forget which of Liz's bottles is which). Now I have dry lips but a big smile.

The quiet student is working out. I am toning down my crazy goofy LOUD SHAZAM! violin lesson attitude and she is talking and responding more. Still gives me weird looks when we do some of the posture stuff but now she rolls her eyes and laughs about it. She's a quick study and she's practicing. That violin she plays, the one that her family owns that's too large for her...she's starting to look like she can handle it. And handle it with solid technique. And I am learning to be intense but with calming energy, because I want her to learn that the violin can take care of her. Progress for both of us.

Riding home from A's tonight after a full day and night of fun, I was reminded of how much I love riding my bike at night. It is getting nippy, though, and soon I'll need to find a thin hat to wear under my helmet. But after 10 minutes my heart rate was up and the cold air felt clean on my face. When I turned in to my neighborhood, the moon was reclining above the streetlamps and I felt very good. My headlamp illuminated the mountain of leaf bags in my neighbor's yard, very neatly piled for garbage day. Horrors! I spirited 8 of them behind my front hedge, to be carted back to the compost bin later.

Now I'm thinking I may need to scurry upstairs to the freezing attic and dive under the covers, because right underneath the Murphy bed there is a full-scale sports war going on. Some team must be doing something, because my downstairs neighbor is bellowing at his TV. Sleeping in the Murphy bed may not be possible tonight unless someone wins or loses (I suppose there would be one of each...) soon.

When talking to a magical person on the phone, I'm pretty sure Miss Manners would say that the appropriate response to "oh, so you're a light sleeper?" is not: "Yes. Do you snore?"

I'm not embarrassed about it, (because I surprised myself when I said it), just whacking my hand against my forehead many times. Ouch.

Last week at rehearsal I thought Liz was taking photos of Z. as he played her bass in the bathroom (great acoustics in there). I didn't realize she was shooting video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=egNYdrRozgM

I'm trying to retire my crappy-looking grey zip-up cardigan with the bleach spot on one elbow. All ladies cardigans I can find right now are too short and/or are in colors that make me look sick. Solution: buy a men's sweater at Goodwill and make it into a zip-up cardigan in my size.

This was the first time I've ever attempted this, and it came out fairly well. It's a little uneven, but my goal was to do it without excessive measuring. It went quickly. Here's what I did:

- laid out the sweater, put my grey cardigan on top of it, and put masking tape where I would be cutting.
- marked a cutting line and a sewing line (I just eyeballed the seam allowance)
- figured out roughly what the seam allowance was
- sewed the side seams and underarm seams back together
- taped and cut open the front of the sweater
- attached a separating zipper (I had to hand-baste the front of the sweater before topstitching over the zipper because the zipper foot kept stretching the sweater

I'm still wearing the grey cardigan, but trying to keep it in my bike bag.