Contracted

Yesterday, I made 93 cents advertising for Google on my blog which is awesome because it’s so slow at work, they gave me the day off. Now I can afford to buy nearly two postage stamps. Keep clicking those ads for me people! Fortunately for me, I found out on a Tuesday that I would be off Wednesday. This means that I was able to put in for shopping and community service on my schedule. Honestly, I don’t mind taking the day away from work. It’s been slow for a few days, and I much prefer to be moving around and having a lot to do.

Tonight is the start of a fourth step workshop that my sponsor advised me to attend. Oh, I’ve gone through the first three steps this past weekend, and am starting the big one: Made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. Yikes. Although I feel that I’ve done a fairly decent job of doing that over the last almost two years of writing, this goes deeper, it delves deeper into things I’m just not comfortable sharing on my blog for a couple reasons. One, I don’t want to hear advice on my sex life from my mom every morning after I post a sex-related blog. And two, there are just some things I’ve done that I will never make public because they may incriminate myself or others, and the statute of limitations has not run out yet. If it helps, I can tell you that I have never raped or murdered anybody.

It’s going to be quite a process. The workshop lasts for, I believe, six weeks. So for one hour every Wednesday before my home group, I will be digging up the past, even deeper than ever before. This is what I was unable to start doing while I was on restriction. Can you believe that shit? I’m using four hours of free time to go to a workshop, a meeting, and fellowship with sober people afterward. I don’t mind using free time for recovery, in fact, I use over half of my 16 hours in sobriety related activities because I know that if I don’t immerse myself in this thing, I’ll have no free time at all.

On a lighter note, I’m on day 24 of my postcard extravaganza. If you put in a request for one and have not yet received it, something went dreadfully wrong and I apologize. You’ll have to resend your information to me please. I’m still taking names, too. I have two weeks left and I’m getting low on the list, so if you want one, please raise your hand. Higher. Thank you.

10 minutes later: Sometimes I just stare at the screen. I don’t want to force anything out because it will appear to be just that. Sometimes I say that I can’t think of anything to write about, but that’s getting old. I look around me, to see if maybe something on the table will inspire me, and there it is. I just got paid today, I’m going shopping, and I think I’ll buy a new shirt. Thank you, Michael’s Sunday newspaper advertisement. Sorry, I won’t be shopping there, because I don’t want to buy my clothes from a hobby store.

And on to an even much lighter subject, the word “won’t.” It bothered me because it’s a contraction. I did some research and I’m going to tell you why. It’s not a contraction of modern day words. Our linguistic ancestors had two forms of the verb willan (to wish or will)-wil in the present, and wold in the past. For centuries, there were so many variations on this word that it became complicated just to keep track of them: wulle, wole, wool, welle, wel, wile, wyll, and even ull and ool. There was less variation in the contracted form. From the 16^th century, the preferred form was wonnot from “will not” and the occasional departure to woll not and the inevitable, willn’t. In the ever changing landscape that is English, “will” won the battle of the “woles, wulles, ools,” but for the negative contraction, “wonnot” simply won out, and contracted further to won’t. So, if you’ve ever wondered like I have, there you go.

Ladies and Gentlemen, The Beatles

The day began with me writing a blog post, much like I’m doing now. I rarely have the need or the ability to write two posts in one day, but I think today has the right to be explained right now.

My Mother and I have had plans for a while now to see Rajaton perform with the Minnesota Orchestra. The name Rajaton- pronounced RAH-ya-ton, meaning “boundless” in Finnish- perfectly describes the a cappella group’s eclectic style. I directly plagiarized that. I had none of those thoughts as I was listening to their music. More on that later.

I had made reservations at Hell’s Kitchen in Minneapolis for brunch which turned out to be a good idea because the waiting list was an hour and a half long. They also had live music which, in my ears, was very good for bluegrass. The food was a solid 8. The only things that knocked it down were that it came out too quickly, and it was not up to temp. As a starter, I ordered a cup of the Mahnomen Porridge. Native-harvested, hand-parched wild rice, heavy cream, roasted hazelnuts, blueberries, cranberries, and pure maple syrup. Fuck me. One of the best, if not unlikely, combinations I’ve ever eaten. Strangely, it came out two minutes after our food, which we had ordered five minutes after I put my order in for the cup. Whatever. I ordered the crab cake Benedict which, as I said, came out too quickly to be fresh, but the flavors were there, as well as the desired textures of a properly cooked crab cake. Good food and music, I will go back.

We walked through a Target store monstrosity where we looked at things that we did not need, and moseyed on toward Orchestra Hall. We arrived about an hour ahead of schedule so we sat around and people watched for a while, a favorite amusement of mine. The lights flickered, and it was time to take our seats.

I helped the fine people of Target create words with the random assortment of light-up letters they left me. I am so creative!

Very blue, as I stated above.

Smaller, and much bluer than I expected, Orchestra Hall appeared to be filled to capacity in anticipation of hearing one of the best albums of all time, Sargent Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. The orchestra was tuned, the lights were lowered, and the important people came in, so we clapped. The “conductor” was an Asian woman. Not a very stereotypical Asian though, as she spoke perfect English and quite oddly, wove around only one chopstick which appeared to intimidate the band. Every time she waved it in their direction, their gasps could be heard through their instruments. I don’t know how it all works, but it was kind of neat.

Now, imagine if you will, six Andy Bernard’s. No, five of those and a David Brent, from the British version of the Office. That’s what Rajaton was. Now, imagine if you will, being trapped in an elevator for two hours with these guys where they turn the world’s greatest music into swing jazz, all lead by a well-bred Asian wielding a chopstick. That’s what I endured. Don’t worry, I’m okay.

I cannot say it was all bad. Their a cappella version of Eleanor Rigby was comparable in its own way to the Beatles. They are famous for a reason, and they do have great voices, they just weren’t John and Paul. The orchestra behind them was great, but again, they only followed the true music of the Beatles a few times.

The second set, after the intermission, was made up of several of the greatest hits. If there’s one thing I dislike about cover bands, or bands, it’s their greatest hits. I would love to have heard A Northern Song, Something, or just the orchestra play Flying. Songs that changed my mind about music when I was very young, and lead me to much greater music than Dr. Dre and Eazy-E, although they still have a place in my heart.

Overall, the day was a great one. We had been looking forward to this for a while. The original idea, of course, was squashed by my agents when they put me on restriction for a month the day before we were to celebrate my mom’s birthday by going to see a different show. It’s all behind me now, and I look forward to trying many new things that these cities have to offer. 

This is the first chance I've had in six months to dress up and go out. I'm looking forward to finding somebody to do things like this with more often (no offense, Mom.)