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| This is obviously not my father (the scrubs he sleeps in are a paler shade of blue, and he does not sleep with a stethoscope around his neck) but this is roughly what I expect to see in a few minutes. |
I'm not trying to turn myself into Matthew in any sort of literal sense. I'm not having a sex change operation, for starters. For that matter, I'm not even cross dressing. To do so would require some serious shopping, and I don't wish to spend money on clothing that wouldn't even be comfortable, although, come to think of it, if I thought I got shock value out of Slut Week -- the brief interval when I dressed like a total skank -- what would my classmates and professors think if I started dressing like a boy? The thought is intriguing, but I'm not going to do it.
The way in which I'm turning into my brother is that I'm becoming rude. If Matthew comes home at 2;00 a.m. , isn't tired, and can't find anything worth watching on TV, he plays the living room piano. Loudly. And not all that well. I taught him the best I could. My mother couldn't teach him at all; she threw her hands in the air in disgust and said, "Some people are not meant to play the piano!" When I taught Matthew, we never got past the moderate classics -- stuff like Moonlight Sonata, Clementi's Sonatina in G, and Mozart's Sonata Facile in C --though it was much further thn my mom ever thought he'd get.. He can sightread a bit, and he can learn a piece of sheet music if he plays through it a few times. He even plays by ear a little. What most of us don't want, though, is to hear Pink's "Just Give Me a Reason" at 2:00 a.m. played on a Steinway by someone who seems to have lead weights around his wrists.
I can't sleep. it's 12:58, not 2;00 a.m. I have a piano in my room, which I could play if I really wanted to, but I'm sure I'd soon be told to stop. There's also a piano in the loft, but that's still pretty close to the bedrooms. If I go down to the living room to the Steinway, my parents will first think it's Matthew, because Alexis doesn't do rude things like play the piano after midnight. Eventually, however, they'll notice that what is being played is not something by Pink or maybe Beethoven's Fur Elise, but a Bach Partita or a Chopin Etude. They will put 1 + 1 together and come up with 2. My parents,,while clueless regarding some social issues, are not entirely stupid. They'll be able to tell the difference between my playing and Matthew's.
The question is will they leave well enough alone when they would tolerate the same behavior from Matthew, or will one of them come downstairs and tell me to shut the hell up? My prediction: I'll start the piece, which is going to be Chopin's Fantaisie Impromptu, and before I even reach the andante cantabile section, my father will be standing at the bottom of the stairs in his polished cotton surgical scrubs in which he sleeps in cool weather locations (I won't share what he sleeps in, or doesn't sleep in, in warm weather locations) asking me what the fuck I think I'm doing.
I'm mainly doing this in the interest of science. Human behavior, and the prediction of such, is a fascinating area of study. I'll let you know tomorrow (or, more precisely, later today) how it went.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tvm2ZsRv3C8
What my brother would be playing, or probably will be paying at 2:00 a.m tomorrow night or the next.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWI6O0pP2aM
If I ever played piano at 2:00am in my parents' house, they would shoot first and ask questions later.
ReplyDeleteMy dad threw a Nerf football at my head from upstairs.
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