Beauty is pain

Exhibit A:

I love these shoes. Love 'em. They're cute and stylish and little uncomfortable. Seems that's just about all a good high heel should be.

After standing in them, passing out hors d'oeuvres for two hours, my feet look like this:

But if my feet had a face, they would use it to express themselves in this manner:

Not to worry, feet. I have just the thing.

Beauty is sometimes painful, but brownies with ice cream are always delicious. Balance is restored, and all is well.

Quick Update

Just wanted to take a second to share a project that will be consuming most of the next week for me here at the CMF.

500 cupcakes.

I'm not kidding.

Our first Full Orchestra show of the season (Next Thursday! Eep!) falls on (or near, I can't remember exactly) the conductor's birthday. That night, we are also celebrating his 10th year with the Festival; we had planned to purchase cupcakes to pass out to each audience member at intermission. The cost proved to be exorbitant-- mini-cupcakes are in high demand these days, it seems. We were exploring alternatives to this dilemma when I opened my big mouth-- "You know, we could probably just make them." Further research into this possibility has proved it to be the most cost-effective by far, so we're plowing ahead. And since it was my big idea...

I am now the Fearless Leader of Operation Cupcake.

Oy Vey. Currently working on logistics-- more updates to come.

Strawberry ice cream

Spring in Boulder always brings with it a certain sense of whimsy-- the sunshine, the bicyclists, the tulips, the quad peppered with shirtless, frizbee-playing boys who all need haircuts and girls tanning (in April? Seriously?). The strict order of the day-to-day that seemed so firmly established before Spring Break crumbles deliciously into the wind at this time of year. Classes get canceled as our teachers scramble to finish dissertations and prepare for concerts, rehearsals get canceled as our accompanists scramble to other rehearsals, homework gets canceled as one of our professors scrambles to recover from a hard-drive crash. These little wrinkles in the fabric of time don't always work out in my favor. But today-- ah, today-- due to one of those lovely little wrinkles, I find myself home before 3, watching cartoons, eating strawberry ice cream, and getting ready for a nap.

Life is good.

Here I am, and here we go.

I'm back. Maybe for good this time. We'll see if it sticks.

It has been one emotional week-- maybe one of the most important weeks of my life. Without going into too much detail, I have finally made the conscious decision to love myself for exactly what and who I am, and have taken steps to manifest that self-conviction in my everyday life.

-I lost one of the most important people in my life to date. Well ok, to say I "lost" him is misleading. Makes him sound like a set of car keys. I didn't exactly misplace him, but he's not my boyfriend anymore, so what do I care where he is?

-I started going to therapy again. I won't be blogging a lot about the progress I make in this area, for (obviously) extremely personal reasons, but I wanted to put it somewhere, because I need practice in the art of asking for help, and this is a good example of that practice. I want to be proud of my decision.

These are both very serious, very emotional decisions for me. At the risk of sounding like a drama queen, I needed to put them somewhere, to tack them to the proverbial Great Online Refrigerator Door, like a report card or an art project, as a reward, as proof that I can --that I do-- love myself.

Appreciating oneself, not for the contribution one makes to other peoples' lives, but solely for the value of one's own life, is a tremendously hard thing to re-learn, and although I do not feel I've lost the skill of loving myself completely, I have some ground to cover.

I've made progress toward existence as an independent woman of conviction this week, however scary and heartbreaking some of it may have been. Right now I feel like I got hit by a bus, but in the week to come I will practice being proud of myself for standing for what I believe in, asking for the respect I deserve, and being unashamed to ask for help.