Sisyphus

I spent the entire day sitting at the kitchen table once again and for the first time in my life hit a moment when I actually became bored of my own creativity! The work I'm doing formatting Brass is so mind-blisteringly dull that it's actually putting me into a panic; a fear which I think must be born from worrying that my work on the piece might actually never be done. I feel like a modern-day Sisyphus, forcing myself to work in a level of detail which feels almost pointless. But creep forward I must, one minuscule step at a time... Let's hope it's worth it, and that the show isn't met with the level of indifference displayed by that silly, droopy gothic girl in Wales with her ludicrous online review!

Desperate for little treats to take me away from the hell of my task in hand, I searched high and low throughout the day for things to distract me when I'd reached certain milestones in my process. I'd switch the kettle on, for example... Sadly, something usually drew me back into the work, so the kettle boiled regularly, yet no tea was ever made. Sometimes I'd check Facebook, which is rare for me, but I'm pleased to report that I found an old school friend lurking there today. We went to Junior School together. In fact, we shared 'cello lessons. She was a bit rubbish at the 'cello, sadly, and confessed today that she only took it up because she wanted to be Julie from Fame. This strikes me as a hugely understandable reason for learning an instrument. I, too, wanted to be Julie from Fame. I wanted to run down a long corridor with my 'cello case in one hand and my schools books in another. Genuinely. It was a fantasy which followed me through much of my childhood, but sadly the corridors were never long enough and running wasn't allowed in them. Besides, I was never late for anything, so why would I be running? As a point of fact, it's actually really very difficult to run with a 'cello case; it trips you over, and makes the instrument inside rattle about rather dangerously... Anyway, my old friend was more of a dancer and tells me she did ballet right up to the moment she went to university, when she gave it up in favour of some kind of business degree, which, no doubt, will have brought her a much more stable lifestyle. It was lovely to hear from her. I liked her enormously when we were at school. In fact, I think I had a bit of a crush on her...

My only other "treat" today was going through my emails and opting out of junk mail. After formatting one set of instruments, I'd allow myself to opt out of a couple more. When I started to click on the "un-subscribe" button - which, in some websites, has become the almost intolerably grotesque "click here to un-sub" button - I began to notice that large swathes of the emails were coming from one website address, fewgbe.net. I just don't see the point in some of the things which get generated and sent on by these companies. They often make no sense. If they were well-made adverts, I'd sort of understand it; for every one hundred people who ignore the advert, there might just be one person who is looking specifically for the thing the company is trying to sell. But when the writing is gobbledygook, or, as is happening more and more recently, is written in an invisible font, you wonder what on earth's going on.  Who is keeping the industry of junk mail alive? It strikes me that it's an exercise in futility which is right up there with what I myself have been doing all day!

So, there we have it. Back in a full circle to where I started, which very much sums up my existence at the moment. Each morning I open up a new file (a single song) which I complete by the end of the day, and the process begins all over again. Thankfully, a group of us is going away on a little holiday tomorrow, so I've got something to look forward to...