Oh For Fun!

State of the Union

I recently took an audition for the Saint Paul Chamber Orchestra.  Theoretically, I should have been gunning for that job.  It's in my dream location, it's an ensemble I grew up admiring, and my wonderful teacher Alice Preves played there.  But I wasn't gunning for the job.  I was going through the very familiar motions of taking an audition.  I did work hard.  I was well prepared. I just never emotionally and mentally committed to the process.  When I got done with the first round, in which I played respectably, but not particularly well, I realized something very amazing: I'm done with this.  I'm done with auditions.  I no longer see the value in spending my time, energy, and money on auditions.  I'm happy in Buffalo.  I have a wonderful life.  I'm done prioritizing something that doesn't make me happy.  Auditions are stupid.

Rather than this being a depressing realization, it's been absolutely liberating.  I'm happier at work, I'm less angsty in general, and I feel fully committed to my life in Buffalo.  Fully committed.  As in: this is the life that I choose.  Someday I might choose another life, but when and if I do, I will be choosing that life, not some audition committee behind a screen choosing me.  For the first time in my entire life, I can honestly say, I do not give one flying fuck what the people behind the screen think of me. 

This attitude has led to some interesting changes in other aspects of my life, including the one I am here to talk to you about: blogging.  Writing Oh For Fun was the first time in my life when I found myself earnestly working on something over a sustained period of time that wasn't the viola.  Blogging has played a huge role in my life over the last two years.  I have found a voice that I was previously trying to channel into the viola; only this voice came with absolutely no baggage.  I haven't been blogging since I was a child. I didn't major in blogging at Oberlin.  I haven't used blogging my entire life as a measuring stick of my success.  I felt no need to prove anything to anyone with my blog.  There was no blogging committee sitting behind a screen, waiting to catch a mistake so they can kick me off the internet.  Blogging has been the easiest thing I have ever done, and it's also the thing I've worked the hardest on (which is shocking when you realize I've been practicing the viola since I was seven).

Oh For Fun has been the musings of my internal mind.  I have used this platform to hone a voice, and to practice writing, to try things out, to share myself, to work hard, and to make my friends and family laugh.  It's been an absolute joy, and I don't think I could ever overestimate how much this platform has fundamentally changed how I measure my potential and my happiness. Blogging has been incalculably good for me. 

The Willful Caboose, is my first baby step out of my own head, and into the world at large with my writing.  With TWC I am attempting to use the skills I have cultivated here, and actively apply them to something specific, something that has an appeal beyond "Kate Holzemer".  I am working on TWC with incredible devotion, and it is paying off in terms of traffic and interest in the blog.  I have no idea what a hockey blog can lead to exactly, but I can say that it has already provided amazing friends, a refocused creativity, TONS of laughs, and an absolute fascination with how the medium of "blogging" has the potential to change the way we receive and share information.  Oh For Fun has felt intensely personal, and The Willful Caboose has felt like presenting a "product"- a product that I am very proud of and that I feel has potential to evolve and grow.

I am so sorry that I have not been keeping up with Oh For Fun.  I can't tell you how much it means to me that people miss it, and want it back.  I just don't know how to manufacture my enthusiasm.  I tried with Nambloogooho, but it just felt incredibly forced.   I don't want Oh For Fun to ever feel like the audition screen, and so rather than trying to propel myself through the motions of blogging here, I am choosing to let it be.  I'm not quitting Oh For Fun, I'm just channeling my energy into The Willful Caboose right now.  I'm certain that someday the pendulum will swing back. 

The reason I have written this big long post is that I desperately want you guys, the people who have always so generously read Oh For Fun, to understand how much your support has meant to me, and how responsible I still feel to this blog and to the people who read it.  I am happier, more peaceful, and more confident today than I have been in 32 years, and I really believe that a lot of this contentment started here, on Oh For Fun, with you.  I love you guys.

 

Last Day!

Well, I had every intention of sitting down and writing something really good for the last day of NaBloPoMo, but the truth is, I am terribly stressed out right now.  Hopefully, the spazzy stressyness will go away after the weekend, and I will be back to my loosy goosy self very soon, but for tonight, I'm all jangley. 

I can't believe I managed to post everyday in November.  It wasn't always eloquent, but I did pull it off!

Almost

Oooh!  I almost forgot you again Nanbloohootoogppfroo!  I can't November has already come and gone.  I'll try to think of something good for tomorrow. 

Eco-Satan

I have about a half dozen of those 99¢ bags that Wegmans sells for groceries.  You know, the kind that are supposed to cut down on all of the plastic bags.  When I first started using them, I kept forgetting to bring them to the store with me, so every time I went grocery shopping I would buy a new one, and now I have way too many.  You can fit a lot of groceries into each bag, and I am just one person, so I very rarely need more than one bag per trip. 

I wonder how many plastic bags I have to not use in order to make up for the fact that eventually, even if I use these sturdy bags for the rest of my life, they too will end up in a landfill?

 

Happy New Year!

A few years ago, on a New Years Eve concert, we did a whole show of Viennese waltzes.  Waltzes have a fairly complicated system of repeats and Da Capos, and it is pretty easy to get lost if you're not on your toes.  At the end of this particular concert, after we played the final chords, we were supposed to shout "Happy New Year" in unison. (I know, so cheesy.)  Something went HORRIBLY wrong in the final number though.  The brass took a repeat that the strings did not take, and we ended up more or less crashing to a halt instead of properly ending the show.  I mean, we played three big loud chord-like crashes, but everyone was in the wrong place and freaking out.  It was without QUESTION the single most disastrous moment I've been a part of as a professional.  We ended the entire concert in a stunned silence. I've always wanted to go back in time and be the one person in the entire orchestra who remembers to gleefully scream "Happy New Year!" after such a disaster.  Now, at work, whenever something is going very very very badly, Janz and I wish each other a Happy New Year.  The phrase "Happy New Year" has become synonymous with "this is a stupid plan and it's not going to work."

Because I'm Worth It!

I took this week off of work unpaid.  I have some practicey type stuff going on this week, and I just needed some time to chill out and not go to work.  I've never done this before; taken time off so that I can just do my own thing.  I'm going to be pretty broke in January as a result of this indulgence, but let me tell you, I am LOVING life this week.  Merry Christmas to me!

Savia's Tattoo

Probably only the musicians in the crowd will understand the significance of the surprise at the end of this post.  This is a photo essay about getting a tattoo.  (Don't worry, it's not too gross.  Just a little gross.)  Milkmoney Or Not Here I Come, is one of those blogs that I really like but that I only check in on from time to time.  I almost scrolled past this entry when I realized it was about a tattoo (tattoos aren't really my thing) but instead I decided to at least find out what she was getting inked on her body. 

Hee! 

Cracker

I have been a professional violist for over ten years now. Somehow (SOMEHOW), I have managed to make it until tonight without playing The Nutcracker.  This is a truly unprecedented feat.  A violist going ten years without playing the Nutcracker is like a fireman going ten years without going to a car crash.  It's insane. 

But tonight, the streak ended.  A colleague called in sick, and I got the call to fill in. 

It turns out the Nutcracker is pretty good!  Hee.

I'm Schroeder

I saw this quiz over at All Things Jennifer and thought it was kind of fun.

Shocking!  I'm Schroeder!  I'm down with being Schroeder.  Not only are we both musicians, but I like his laid back disposition.  Who are you?

Which Peanuts Character are You?

You are Schroeder!
Take this quiz!

Quizilla | Join | Make A Quiz | More Quizzes | Grab Code

Happy Thanksgiving!

Holy Moses!

I just remembered Namgoloblonuuhoo with only seven minutes to spare!  I'm up to my elbows in pie crust right now, but damn it, I am GOING to post every day in November!

There.

Happy Birthday OboeKate!

On Saturday night in celebration of OboeKate's (she's OboeKate, I'm ViolaKate) 39th birthday, we went on an old fashioned pub crawl.  I want to say something like, "I haven't been on a pub crawl in X number of years...", but the truth is, until Saturday I'd never been on a pub crawl.  The pub crawl was new (and hilarious) territory. 

On Allen St. in Buffalo there are probably twelve bars covering three blocks.  I don't think we hit every single one, but we came admirably close.  In respectful deference to the long night ahead, I chose my poison carefully.  I opted for Labatt's Blue Light, Buffalo's go-to cheap beer.  This proved to be a very good choice indeed.

Here we are at the first bar.  Perfectly sober and respectable.

I actually look pretty wasted in this picture.  I'm not sure why.  I guess I was just exuberant that night.

After Colter Bay, we headed over to Gabriel's Gate.  Nothing too interesting happened there.  I think we were all just warming up to the idea of the crawl at this point.  We'd all been at Gabriel's many times, and no one felt compelled to photograph the experience.

Next up: Frizzy's.  Frizzy's is an adorable name for a bar and I'd always wanted to go there, but in previous attempts I'd been deterred by the frat boys hanging out on the front landing.  Not so on Saturday!  We bravely trudged into Frizzy's, and as expected, we were way older than the rest of the clientele.   I did learn an important thing about myself in Frizzy's, and that is that I no longer care what college kids think of me....at all.  That was a pretty funny thing to discover, actually.  We didn't take any pictures there, but we did crawl into a photo booth and take one of those old fashioned strips of pictures.

After Frizzy's we went to Sample and ate some tiny food (don't ask), and we went to The Bend where we only stayed long enough for the smokers to smoke one cigarette.   

Here we are looking fairly respectable still:

After The Bend, we crossed the street to some bar I don't remember the name of but I really enjoyed.  This is where the peak of the drunkenness occurred. 

Looking slightly less respectable:

It was at about this time that Dinesh was expounding on the hotness of the St. Pauli girl, and I was telling the story about the time a soft spoken surgeon-to-be took a liking to me while I was living in Philly and OH MY GOD I SHOULD HAVE MARRIED THAT GUY. 

We decided we needed some food.  And not tiny food like they serve at Sample.  We needed regular sized, greasy food.  So we headed to New York Pizza.

New York Pizza is the only good pizza in town.  The good news is that it really is tasty.

After New York Pizza we were all feeling a whole lot better as you can tell by this picture:

I really like how these pictures degenerate as the evening wears on.  At this point we lost a few members of the crew.  Dinesh, Jenn, and Dan took off like a bunch of weenies.  Shieh-Jian, Kate, Ron, Ed and I soldiered on to a scuzzy gay bar where we took this oddly good picture.  Look at how glamorous OboeKate looks!

And that's when I bailed, but these crazy bitches went to The Old Pink and they ate breakfast at the Towne Restaurant.  Impressive.

I wouldn't recommend the pub crawl as a weekly activity, but it was definitely super fun with this crew.  Due to my excellent pacing of the Blue Lights and food throughout the night, I wasn't even hung-over the next day!  Aren't I a genius?

Happy Birthday OboeKate!

Cheater

This post is a total cheat and a rip-off because this picture was on cuteoverload just today, but I don't care.  I love this picture.  I want to make sure you all see it just in case (despite my ardent pleading), you do not look at cuteoverload each and every day.

Isn't that a nice one?

Succulent

I don't have a very good track record with indoor plants.  I've proven myself to be a fairly good gardener, but potted plants tend to wither away under my supervision.  This is partially due to the fact that I travel many weeks out of the year, and partially due to the fact that I take weird pleasure in letting my plants get really thirsty, and then watching them spring back to life when I finally water them.  I'm kind of an asshole to my potted plants.

A few years ago I discovered the perfect plants for me.  I believe all of these guys fall into the "succulent cactus" category.  They are hardy, like a normal cactus, but they are minus all of the prickliness of their spikier relatives.   In fact, these plants are down right plump, and their "leaves" have an interesting fleshiness that I find very appealing.  No matter what I do (or don't do), the succulents refuse to die, and only a small amount of tender care has produced great results.  Succulents are unassuming, hardy, and all around charming little plants.  You should get some.

Thank You, Lotion!

I am giving thanks this week for a few products, appliances, and snacks that I feel have greatly enriched my life.

Today we honor: lotion.

I don't even want to think about what life must have been like before lotion.  If my skin gets too dry it makes me want to freak out, barf, and cry all at the same time.  I am so extremely thankful for lotion.