Three Embarrassing Moments

1) After washing and drying my iPod (note, while unreadable, it still works), I was listening to it while tilling the yard this weekend.
It falls off my hip and onto the ground.  I pick it up and it’s “frozen”.  I’ve heard of this problem.  I start worrying.  I can’t even get it to turn off.  How do I tell Steve that I re-broke my iPOD.
I decided that perhaps the battery was dying, not that I could tell, and perhaps a charge would give  life back.
Upon closer inspection, four days later, I realize that the “hold” slider has slid onto “hold”.  I move the slide and functionality returns.

2) I am out on a road trip with a couple of friends.  We stop at one of New York’s finest rest areas.  Having some “female garbage” to dispose of, I make the deposit and as the door comes down on the box, the entire unit falls through the wall into the adjacent stall, spilling its contents.

3) At that same rest area, I hang my keys (I was driving) on the purse hook as the weather was nice and I didn’t have room in my purse or jeans for keys.  We get back in the car, take off down the highway and are about three minutes down the road.
I have a shocking thought…. “Oh my god.  Did I leave my keys in the bathroom?!

Okay Bob, I got the message.

The past couple of nights, I’ve been having upsetting/frustrating dreams.
Last night was no exception.

It is not a secret that I HATED high school (what, like 10 years ago, whatever).  HATED.  LAMENTED.  DESPISED.  I would often mope around, commenting, “If these are the best years of my life, I am fucked.”  You get the gist of it.
I can’t really put my finger on exactly why I hated it so much, but I know a big part of it was my “major” and “teacher”.
Okay, I’ll explain that and then the dream will make more sense.
When I was 11, I was transferred to a Smrt Kids School where I met a very wonderful teacher who would foster my curiosity about music.  I took up a number of instruments, included but not limited to: clarinet, bass clarinet, alto clarinet (still one of my favorite sounds), trumpet, flute, trombone, violin (that didn’t last) and finally saxophone.  I had always loved the sax and I finally got the chance to play one.  I taught myself over a the summer between sixth and seventh grade.
I was good.  Damn good.
I did state contests and placed.  I had high scores in the quartet divison…  For 8th grade graduation, my parents purchased me a tenor sax and I named it Bob.
So I decided that I wanted to play saxophone for a living  (“How Silly!” 1997 Stephanie would say to 1992 Stephanie) and I auditioned for the Peforming Arts High School.  Remember the show “Fame”?  Yup, that’s exactly what it was like.  I got accepted.
It wasn’t until my senior year (and many talks with the principal) that the instrumental teacher finally learned that my name was NOT “Stacy Yuk”; which was not even close to my real name, BTW.
For a long while, I was the only girl in the sax section and (I think) because I wasn’t in Jazz Band, I got the crappiest instruments and was placed in third chair.  (By tradition, Seniors got first chair, regardless of ability).  I had my own horn but it wasn’t feasable to carry it to and from school… seeing as the case is about 2/3’s my size.
Sometime around Spring of my freshman year, I had grown tired of playing.  I did not look forward to band.  Sure, I had done musicals and even tried Dixieland (holy hell, that was a nightmare).
The displeasure grew and festered until my senior year when I activly counted down the days until graduation.  My instructor didn’t care about me and I certianly didn’t care for him.  I did what I had to do to graduate.

So now you have the background.

In my dream last night, I’m back in hell high school but as 2008Stephanie.  I enter the theatre though the balcony door (which was reseved for orchestra members only) and see that there are four music stands and chairs.  I have Bob with me and we take a seat.  I open my case, assemble Bob and start warming up.  Then my evil teacher enters.  He tries to give me a trumpet score (as trumpets and tenors are in the same key) and I tell him that I am a saxophone player and he needs to give me saxophone music.
So he does.  And it’s a for a C-tuned sax (tenors are tuned to Bb) (Soprano saxes are tuned to C and ET played soprano) (hmmmm).
Now I have to transpose between keys, which was another stumbling point in the day, and I can’t do it in my head.  Especially at the tempo of which the piece was going.  Bob’s honking and squeeking and the notes aren’t making sense and all I want to do is play.  Just play.  Show him that I can.  That I’m better then him.  That he didn’t break me (which he did).
After practice, I take my score and painstakingly transpose the score so I can read it.  But I hid it in the C-tuned score.
All I end up doing is embarrasing myself and running out of the balcony.

So this morning I purchased four theory/technique/training books from half.com
Point taken.
Now stop with the nightmares.