So, a few weeks ago I went to IL to visit my parents. On my way back into the city, I decided to put on some music and practice a contra I have been working on. There were a couple of spots I was having trouble with the wording, so I thought driving down Interstate-55 at night was as good a time as any to practice.
***Footnote: 3 years ago I took classes @ Lincoln Seminary--Lincoln, IL and coming home I always had a landmark that I looked for to let me know the next exit was mine. It happens to be a hideous neon teal cross affixed to this tall church building. This is when I lived in IL*** Station break is now over and regular programing will resume...
So I am thoroughly enjoying this CD my great roommate loaned me and I am calling my guts out to this wonderful group of imaginary dancers that are dancing to across the dashboard of my little car to the wonderful tunes being poured fourth by the fabulous band, when I look up and thru the dark night sky shining like a beautiful blue beacon I see--you guessed it--the teal neon cross. I was in a great mood enjoying the music, I was getting those rough spots worked out and my merry thoughts drifted to, "Huh, I didn't realize that I passed this church on my way baaaacck hommmmmme--OH CRAP! CRAP! CRAP! (realization dawns)" I might have even shouted out loud. The dancers on my dashboard have now dissipated into thin air and my band is just a CD again.
I was so intent on fixing those rough spots, that I had driven to Staunton, IL. For those of you who never visit IL, that's exit 33. YEP! 33 miles the WRONG direction. I would like to blame it on the fact that it was 10pm when I left and it was dark. Yes, yes merging onto 55 from 255 is tricky in the dark***insert eye roll here***.
The bright side? I had 33 MORE miles to practice! Happy calling everyone.
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5 comments:
Thanks for the giggle! Yeah, calling while driving, I've decided, is only safe if you have a navigator....
But that's exactly why calling while driving is good--the point is not to be able to juggle multiple balls at once. If you can only focus on your dance card, you'll never notice that the dancers themselves have fallen apart :)
Hmmm...
Calling while juggling.
Calling while clogging.
Calling while cooking.
Calling while text messaging.
Calling while chewing gum and walking.
The possibilities multiply.
oops, i had a typo--my comment should read--
the point is to be able to juggle multiple balls at one.
sorry
Interesting. I worked so hard to parse what you said that I actually understood it the other way. "You're not juggling" meant "You're not doing something which is solely in muscle memory, you're actually dividing your thoughts"
We had to learn to divide our thoughts in music school in order to play 2 notes against 3, 3 against 4 or (horror) 4 against 5. No cheating and learning some rhythmic pattern to fake it.
A few years ago, I learned to do that Canadian fiddler's clogging-while-playing the violin thing, but if anyone had seen me trying it at first, they would still be laughing at the vision of my disastrous awkwardness. However, the clogging doesn't use up precious frontal lobe capacity once you get it into the muscles. So it's EASY compared to thinking about what to call and thinking about those falling apart dancers.
So I can see why calling in a car while making sure other drivers don't kill you is good practice for an actual dance situation.
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