three and a half hours of mandolin foolin'

oh boy. so. how does one write about a mandolin orchestra festival?

well here's how. so saturday night i headed over to frank and debbie's, my dad's first cousins, and there we caught a quick drink and i got some pup-petting time with the two most famous border collies, lucky and traveler. then we piled in the car and headed down to the CAPA center in downtown pittsburgh, where frank succeeded in parking the car. no, that came out wrong. he parked the car in a garage next door, not at the center.

i had no idea what to expect, whether a "mandolin festival" comprised of a series of concerts, or a series of mandolin-playing workshops, perhaps with a special demonstration on how to make mandolins. frank didn't know if he was supposed to bring his mandolin or not, and i half-joked that i would bring my uke, disguised as a mandolin. in a beard, hat, and glasses, naturally.

it was a concert it turns out. a three and a half hour concert. don't get me wrong, i really enjoyed it, and our friend gregg was playing in the pittsburgh mandolin orchestra so it was a real treat to see him on the stage. but even operas aren't three and a half hours. and they have costumes.

so each group was great to hear, but perhaps they could have each played about half the number of pieces they chose, to keep things moving. one can only listen to one instrument for so long before needing a break. it's like listening to the bagpipes for three and a half hours straight.

there were three groups: the pittsburgh mandolin orchestra, the dayton, ohio mandolin orchestra, and an international mandolin orchestra, including two young italian guys who took the liberty of goofing off on stage since they could play brilliantly enough to not really pay close attention to what they were doing.

i also enjoyed seeing the range of instruments in the mandolin family; i had no idea that such things existed as mandocellos, and mandobasses, essentially the mandolin equivalents of the various violin family sizes we are used to seeing in a classical orchestra. the mandobass looks like a giant tick, and is totally worth giving you a visual for:

erin go bragh!

i'm off to the south side in a bit for some guinness-ing fun, but happy saint patrick's day, everyone! today was sunny, warm, and i painted my nails green. tonight, i'll drink guinness with chocolate shots, dance, and be merry.

in honor of this favorite holiday of mine, if you have not seen the films the quiet man and the secret of kells, you are missing two treats! the quiet man stars john wayne as an ex-prize fighter from pittsburgh who comes home to ireland where he meets the fiesty maureen o'hara ("that red hair is no lie!"). the secret of kells is a beautifully animated film that tells the story of how the famous and breathtaking illuminated manuscript, the book of kells, was created. erin go bragh!

be happy

i have been in a stressful state all week, for various reasons, but one of the biggest, of course, being a general anxiety and misery for the japanese. and yet, they have shown astonishing and admirable patience and humanity in the way they've worked together to help each other.

my dreams have consequently been likewise bizarre and uncomfortable, always too vague to leave me remembering much but a sense of uneasiness; and i keep waking up in the middle of the night, tense with the realization that the world isn't safe.

this afternoon, however, after a day of about 1% of sunlight, i was sitting on the floor of my bedroom with my back to the radiator. my cats were doing likewise, which, by the way, makes it quite crowded around the radiator. but sitting there i looked out my window and happened to see patches of blue sky, straining to break through the racing clouds. it was so small, but i confess my chest actually tightened a bit at the sight. blue sky!

generally i am a cheerful person, singing to myself while walking down the sidewalk, etc. but from habits developed from past experiences, i tend to believe that if i can control enough factors around me by analyzing (or stressing over) them to the tiniest minutiae, then nothing can ever go wrong. of course this isn't true. i remember talking to one of my dear friends about a year ago about a situation that was troubling me, and which i could not stop stressing over. she asked me why i felt the need to be so preoccupied with it, and i said (and i still admit i kind of believe this) that if i at least prepared myself for all possible outcomes of this situation, then it would save me some of the pain of rather having a shock if a negative outcome should occur.

she looked at me kindly and grinned and said "no it won't."

and she's right. it wouldn't save me. you can prepare and prepare for pain, but it's still pain. is that sad-sounding? i've realized that a kind of freedom comes from that thought, though, which is what my friend was getting at: if you can only prepare so much, then what will you do with the rest of your time?

and that answer is always easy: be happy.

so to help you be happy, here's a lovely picture of surely some of the happiest spring flowers, daffodils:

austen, anyone?

trololololo

oh yes. oh yes. ok seriously one of the best things i've seen in awhile:

today is a good day

this research on arranged marriage is really intriguing...did you know that over 60% of marriages world-wide are arranged? they seem to have high success rates as well–but of course, we don't know that that necessarily means they are "happy." divorce is much more stigmatized, i believe, in countries where arranged marriage is widely practiced. and there is obviously a whole cultural attitude that goes hand in hand with arranged marriage, namely an expectation of how much effort you are going to put in to make the union work (but maybe this is something we can learn from?).

i am waiting on a book from interlibrary loan (come on library system, i have a first draft due soon!) called first comes marriage, by reva seth, in which she interviews hundreds of women in arranged marriages and assesses the values that they encompass. the book should be really interesting, as it's supposed to not only discuss why many arranged marriages are happy, but how westerners can rethink how they approach marriage and partner compatibility in their own "love matches."

i am also waiting for WARM WEATHER to arrive, but today it should be a high of 52 (yayyyy) and tonight i am going to dinner with my cousins to celebrate cousin doug's girlfriend's birthday. i went to marshalls and old navy yesterday and bought new yoga pants and sweatshirts so after doing some more google searching on arranged marriage, i'm heading outside to take advantage of the first visible signs of spring. so today is going to be a good day.

how to be married

well, i have no idea how to do so, really. but last semester i wrote a research paper about american marriage and divorce, and this semester i am writing a research paper about arranged marriage in india, and american perspectives on it. so i guess i'm thinking a lot about marriage these days.

no, wait a minute. let's see…the subject of my senior thesis in college was laughter, sexuality and marriage in jane austen. so okay. clearly there has been a theme for awhile here. but i promise, i'm not trying to get married this year or something. i just worry about marriage as this possible looming thing in my future, sometimes. so either i am a typical young woman thinking about what marriage means, or else i've just seen so many bad marriages that i'm always thinking about what makes good ones.

and i have seen good ones (thank God). but how do they do it? what are they made up of? and is academia really the best way to figure them out? thoreau would give me some bull about life experience being the ultimate teacher, but that man really pushes my buttons so i'm not about to take advice from him.

no, i believe in being in doing the research beforehand. being an informed citizen. asking friends, family, and i guess making research projects based around the question of how people are happy together all over the world.

also, did you know that women do not want men that smell bad, or who are not well-groomed? yup. it's all here, on an indian matchmaking website my professor gave me for my research project, www.shadi.com. read all about what men and women want.