2004-05-10 at 6:52 p.m.

Apologies for my lack of entries this week. You see, I've been so busy lately that by the time I drag my ass home at the end of the day I barely have enough energy to fall gracelessly into bed*, let alone write anything even vaguely coherent. Much of this busy-ness and subsequent exhaustion have come from the local theatre company's production of 'Barnum'. I'm playing one of the two orchestral piano parts. The music isn't all that difficult, but the two pianos are placed at opposite ends of the rather expansive stage and are a quarter-tone out of tune with each other. This means that I and the other pianist cannot hear each other 98% of the time, and during that 2% when we can, we wish we couldn't.

Last week, the only night I got free was Wednesday. Every other night was spent in either a small and draughty hall or the large and draughty Entertainment Centre, playing 'Oom cha cha cha' for three hours and adding the occasional glissando when I got bored. Thankfully, I now have a break til Thursday. But I won't be wanting to go to any circus or circus-based entertainment for a long time after this is over.

Apart from that, things have been fairly average. I've picked up a couple more piano students, am still starving to death while I wait for parents to pay me their kids' term fees, joined a fairly select women's choir (who hadn't actually heard me sing before they invited me to join. I'm sure they're regretting that now), ate, slept, and actually cleaned the bathroom for once in my goddamn life.

Yesterday, I went to the artiest cafe I've ever been in, at the urging of Louise, a choir buddy of mine. (She and I both belong to that exclusive bracket of people who grew up in this town, went away for university, then came back here for work purposes, and are slightly discomfited about it). There was incredibly abstract art on the walls, small, postmodern plastic stools to sit on, a schizophrenic man with a guitar singing surprisingly good songs, and a lot of teens and twentysomethings wearing unusual clothes and an awful lot of eyeliner.

'What do you think?' asked Louise, as we sipped our very artistic lattes.

'Well,' I replied, 'now I know where the disaffected youth of this town goes in their spare time'.

She tried to stifle her laughter. A goth across the room glared at us.

I think I will continue to frequent that cafe, though. The coffee is good - and the entertainment value is second to none.

I bought a leather jacket yesterday. I am now the baddest classical pianist in the whole damn town**. Today the whole house smells like new leather and old incense and peanut butter and orange scented Pine-O-Clean, which is actually a rather nice combination of smells.

And since I don't have any food in the fridge, I'm about to go and add the scent of home delivered pizza to it.

*In a manner rather akin to a mighty redwood, felled by a cruel blow from the woodsman's axe. Or maybe that scene in 'Liar, Liar' where Jim Carrey runs full tilt into a bathroom wall.

**In both senses of the phrase.