Martin MacNeill & My Senior Recital : Two Unrelated Obsessions

I'm trying not to obsess on the topic, but for the record it's about 8.75 days until my senior piano recital.

Both the state and the defense have rested in Martin MacNeill's trial. I will be surprised if the jury does not vote to convict. My pseudoaunt opined that the overwhelmingly Mormon population comprise the jury, and Mormons have been conditioned to make decisions based on feeling over cold, hard evidence.

In many cases a defendant may walk or at least a jury may hang even when everyone on the jury feels the defendant is guilty because the jury will not vote to convict when sufficient evidence hasn't been presented. This is as it should be. In Utah, however, it's easier to get a conviction without overwhelming evidence when the consensus is guilt. Additionally, my pseudoaunt thinks that the men will dominate jury deliberations in this case, and that the males on the jury appeared to be favoring the prosecutions.

My pseudoaunt thinks MacNeill is guilty as sin, but she thinks that based on the evidence, she would vote to acquit. She thinks the medical examiners' listed causes of death are too damning to the prosecuation. I do not agree with her, but I admit that as a practicing attorney she has exponentially more legal knowledge than I have.

This blog is ended. go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to render verdicts according to the judge's instructions if you're ever on a jury.

My Good Friend Klonopin

I went to class yesterday, then came back to my dorm room after my final class of the day just past noon. I decided I was tired and crawled into my bed to take a very quick nap before heading to the music building to practice. About sixteen hours later i woke up. It freaked me out a bit, as at first I was unsure of where I was, and then I was thoroughly disoriented and unsure of why I had been in bed with my clothes on. Eventually I pieced things together and recreated the sequence of events leading up to my getting in bed fully dressed or the "just a few minutes" that mysteriously turned into sixteen hours.

I have a piano lesson at 7:00 a.m. today, and it really bothered me that I had slept through my practice session, so I texted my professor, who quickly texted me back. I don't know what kind of hours he maintains on a normal day, but he texted me back immediately to say he was calling me and I should answer. I answered his call, and he told me that I shouldn't worry about not practicing because I could skip practice until the day before my recital and still be as prepared as anyone has ever been for a senior recital. He said the only reason he wants me practicing at all in the days leading up to the recital is because it would drive me crazy not to practice. He said I should come to my lesson as usual tomorrow at 7:00 a.m. because I should be very well-rested by then.

My professor texted my Aunt Joanne. Uncle Michael, her husband, called and asked me if I had any benzos on me. I answered that I had a few Klonopins. I've maintained a few Klonopins in my possesion since I've been eighteen so that if I needed them and a doctor told me to take one at an odd time, I would have it without someone having to bring one to me after hours or call in a prescription during normal business hours. I never take even one without being told to by an MD or my mom so that I will be trusted to have them on hand. I told Uncle Michael that I had Klonopin on me, and he told me to take one. He said that if it knocks me out to the point that I miss my early-morning lesson (I'm not a morning person, and 7:00 a.m. is early to me)not to worry about it. I took the Klonopin and am now finally starting to relax. I have an alarm set because I don't want to miss a lesson with my recital looming in ten days.

Now I'm a bit buzzed but not terribly sleepy because I've slept for almost sixteen consecutive hours. It's chilly, so I turned on my electric blanket, which I don't use very often, and am listening to music quietly so that I don't wake the neighbors on either side of my dorm room. They could probably sleep through Armageddon anyway, so I shouldn't be so concerned about waking them.

I'll google the Martin MacNeill trial to see if anything Earth-shattering happened yesterday while I was attending class or sleeping. I need to rsearch the logistics, but if the trial is still going strong after my recital, I may take a couple of days off from class and fly to Utah to attend a day or two of the trial. I need to know what the chances are of getting inside the courtroom before I fly there, but if it looks like a 50/50 shot for each of the two days that I'm there, I'll go. I've already spoken with the professors whose classes I will miss, and they say it's fine. I'm pretty much going through the motions, as I've finished all assignments and have thoroughly covered all text material and other reading assignments in all of my classes, and all of my professors know it.

Flying to Utah in the middle of the week just to see a trial in person is a bit extravagant, but I have lots of money in the bank from the days when I worked daily as an accompanist in addition to playing for church services, weddings, and funerals. I still have everything but what I tithed and an additional 5% that I put into a separate account for spending money. I continue to put any earnings from after I graduated in the discretionary account as well (and my parents fork over a small stipend evey month even though I don't really need it because my brother does need spending money from them and they want to be fair, and I deposit what they give me into that account) so I still have quite a bit more money than I'll go through this year in the discretionary account, so I'm in a good place, financially speaking. I have as many problems as the average person in most other areas of my life, so it's nice to have my finacial situation be problem-free.

It was my parents' rule that caused me to bank the vast majority of my earnings. I'm not a major spender anyway, so I probably would have managed to stow away a decent sum, but their insistence caused me to save a substantial amount for someone of my age who's not in the entertainment industry. Anyone my age or younger who is reading this, consider that as archaic as they may seem, sometimes parents actually know what they're talking about.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to listen to your parents unless you have a really good reason for not listening to them. On an unrelated note, it is wise only to take benzos when directed by a medical professional to do so.

Lice and Mice

I'm watching the episode of "The Office" in which a whole lot of them get lice. Meredith is initially believed to have started it, and she ends up shaving her head. Then it ends up that Pam started it. Meredith wants someone to shave Pam's head. Dwight Schrute wears some sort of HASMAT suit to avoid getting lice. He was traumatized from having lice when he was seven, and he believes the reason he was picked on as a child was solely because of having lice.

Looking at Meredith with her shaved head caused me to realize how much one of my mom's former co-workers, a somewhat malevolent woman, looks like Meredith.

My mind is wandering strangely from lice to mice, which reminds me of a poem that my brother and I had to recite for the diocese's Poetry and Prose Festival when we were in kindergarten. The parochial school we attended in kindergarten and second grade was really into the twin thing. Whenever there was a talent contest or something even more lame like a poetry and prose event, the head honchos at the school always wanted my brother and me to perform together. Our single most tasteless performance was surely the time they dressed us up as Ike and Tina Turner and had us sing along and dance (we both danced somewhat like African American children) to "Proud Mary." They didn't black our faces at least but they did put us in wigs with major Afros. It was all the eighth grade teacher's idea, and no one mentioned it to our parents because they would have put a stop to it.

Anyway, I located the lame poem about mice.

I think mice are rather nice;
Their tails are long, their faces small;
They haven't any chins at all.
Their ears are pink, their teeth are white,
They run about the house at night;
They nibble things they shouldn't touch,
and no one seems to like them much,
but I think mice are nice!
-Rose Fyleman

Have you ever read a more lame poem in your life. It's at least as bad as anything E. E. Cummings [capitals intended] ever wrote. Furthermore, it expresses a sentiment that is pretty much a polar opposite to the one I actually hold. I hate rodents. Guinea pigs are the only rodent I can even look at without developing a serious case of the willies, and even Guinea pigs I only tolerate when they're inside cages.

My mom hates rodents, too, but she had a favorite movie from her childhood that was about a rat, and she had it on a pirated Beta tape. Actually it was two separate movies, Ben and Willard. Ben was the sequel where Ben avenges his late pal Willard's death by leading his band of rats to take over New York City. The Michael Jackson song "Ben" came from the movie of the same name. My mom had it transferred to a DVD and had us watch it once, thinking for some reason that we were as sick as she was at our ages and that we might actually enjoy it. We both had nightmares for weeks.

I'm now rambling in the way my grandfather does anytime he's allowed in front of a microphone. Time for bed.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to avoid lice and mice, and not necessarily in that order.

Department Politics

woman who bears uncanny resemblance to my former slightly psycho professor

Music is music, and politics are politics, but the two occasionally overlap, I have learned.

Right now I'm taking a break in my dorm room between classes. After my last class of the day, I will go to the music department and practice the piano. It will be my first time practicing piano on campus this quarter. My professor gave me a key to his office so I can use his piano, which is a better piano than the ones in the practice rooms. Also it allows me not to have to sign up for a practice room, thus avoiding alerting the competition in advance, as I don't really need him or his professor listening in on my practice session. If either he or his professor happens to wander in the area in which I'm practice and listen in, that's the way the cookie crumbkles, but I'm not going to make it easy for them to do so. My competitor doesn't have time to officially insert one of the obscure pieces into his program as his program has already been approved and sent off to the printer, although he could use one of the two selections as an encore if he already happened to know the piece. Chances are that he doesn't know my two obscure pieces, as they're both by Billy Joel, and Billy Joel's classical works are very much underplayed. Just the same, I won't play either Billy Joel work that I'm playing in my recital on campus until the competitor's recital has taken place on Friday. I will attend his recital. I'd like to pretend I don't care, but everyone knows I do care, so I would be fooling absolutely no one by staying home but questioning everyone who did attend.

The cut-throat environment is very unpleasant and unfamiliar to me. I like all the other piano majors and wish the best for them. I actually like my rival personally, but the rivalry between the two of us went from a friendly competition to not exactly outright antipathy but very definite conflict. I place the blame more or less entirely on his professor, who was my professor as well until she made it very clear just where she stands by asking me to switch my recital date to early September, then by not taking no for an answer and using my lesson time with her for three consecutive sessions to try to persuade me to give up my November recital date even after I had told her in no uncertain terms that I was unwilling under any circumstances to give up my recital date. My fellow piano major came very close to having to take an "incomplete" grade and to re-register for a recital next quarter, which would have been a blight on his record and, even worse, would have forced him to give up his next quarter in Europe that he had previously planned. Had another student not decided that she would not be ready for her recital and cancelled with just a month to spare, thus opening a later recital date, he would have had to take the incompete, change his plans, and have his recital next quarter.

I didn't refuse to trade dates with my rival just to spite him. The date he chose was too early. He chose such an early date, on the advice of the professor, to be bold, but as the date approached, it was apparent that he wasn't ready. Had I been thoroughly prepared for a recital two months before my scheduled recital date, I probably would have traded with him. I wasn't adequately prepared to go ahead with my recital so early. I very briefly considered it, but my mom was so strongly opposed to my rushing myself when the problem really wasn't my problem that I quickly said no and refused to change my mind. The professor made it very clear who was her favored student by harassing me in effort to get me to swap recital dates. I believe she thought she could force me to trade dates by making my life miserable, but she didn't consider that she's not the only piano professor the university offers, and when a new adjunct professor was hired, I quickly signed up to study under him. There's another professor who's a nice guy but not technically a mster of his subject in my opinion, and there's my mom, neither of whom would have been ideal for me, though I would have studied under my mom had the adjunct professor not been hired. My mother totally agreed with my decision to study with the adjunct professor. My mom is good -- probably more great than good -- but she's my mother. Furthermore, she was my first piano teacher; I've probably already learned most of what I will ever learn about the piano from her.

I'm toying with approaching my competitor and telling him exactly where I stand. I'd like for us to be friendly rivals again, as it's really the professor with whom I have an issue. If I choose to do that, it will not happen until after his recital. He has more than enough on his mind right now without my crowding his thoughts. I do know, however, that anything I say to him will go directly to his professor, although what I have to say to him should come as no surprise to her. Because my words will reach the ears of the professor, and will do so sooner rather than later, I will ask my mom how she feels about my approaching my competitor, as I will be long gone after spring quarter, but my mom will still have to work with the woman long after I've moved on to the greener pastures of [I hope] medical school. Even though I am my own person and not merely an extension of my mother, I do not wish to contribute to a poor working relationship between her and a colleague.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to practice, but not to the extent that you give away advantageous secrets.

wasting time watching the Duggars because my mom doesn't want me going anywhere

My mother is old-fashioned about things like illnesses. I'm not feeling terribly energetic yet after a recent case of pneumonia, but I would have gone to lunch with some friends just to be social. My mother acted like I said I was going to fly to Japan for the day and climb Mount Fuji while I was there. It wasn't worth listening to her manic rantings, so I told my friends I would have lunch with them next weekend. I'd already practiced piano and violin as much as my doctor thinks I should be practicing in a given day (why is it his concern, anyway? I had pneumonia, not stage 4 non-Hodgkin's lymphona), so there wasn't much I could do. My dad turned on a downstairs TV and somehow landed on an On Demand episode of Nineteen and Counting with everyone's favorite litter, the Duggars. My dad had never had the pleasure of viewing Jim Bob, Michelle, and their quiver full of zombie-like spawn.

Jessa, who is daughter number three, four, or five, has begun the courtship phase of her life. Duggars can't just find people they like at school, because they don't go to school. Neither can they date, because the practice of dating is superficial and sinful, or something like that. "Courting" is how Duggars find compatible mates. The Duggars and their courtees have no physical contact. According to the Gothardite courtship model of finding suitable mates, once Duggars or other Gothardites become engaged, they're supposedly permitted to hold hands. They're not allowed to be unchaperoned. (One commenter on a message board observed that Jim Bob and Michelle can hardly say their offspring are resisting temptation if they're never even exposed to temptation.) Then, on their wedding day, the courters apparently go from holding hands to full-scale sexual intercourse in one fell swoop.

My dad found this all somewhat hard to believe. He said that they're maybe one degree less strange than Warren Jeffs' band of merry misfits. He referenced the line, usually applied to Scientology, that Gothardites exist to make Mormons and Jehovah's Witnesses appear almost normal by comparison. Then he said that while he didn't necessarily want me to be a complete slut, he'd probably prefer that to my engaging in the backwards courtship process that the Duggars use to find their mates.

I wish I had something more exciting to share, but when a person's mother thinks she'll contract the ebola virus if she walks out the front door or allows any non-family member to enter the house through it, options for entertainment are limited.

Tomorrow I shall be paroled, as I'm going to class and sleeping in my dorm room.

My psuedoaunt had surgery yesterday to repair a section of her duodenum that had a small ulcer. the ulcer was miniscule enough that many doctors would've wanted to leave it alone and heal it with medications, but it incresed in size since it was detected a month ago and treated, and her history of bleed-outs made her doctor want to operate. She handled the surgery well and is already home. She'll have an RN or MD with her for the next week because there are plenty of both in the family.

I had a blast touring California's answer to Bourbon Street in a wheelchair on Halloween night. There's usually at least one party with a live band. This year their were two live bands. We listened for long enough to detrmine which band was better, then found a nice spot near the better band. I brought ten dozen cookies to share, which got us a bona fide invitation onto the property and into the party where the better band was performing.

I'm getting better and will be back at practice on Monday. Thanks to skype and the modern convenience of many professors posting their lectures online, I'm not behind at all on my lecture notes. I was able to practice my both instruments for a few hours yesterday and today. My piano recital is in two weeks. I have all my pieces thoroughly nailed and memorized. Now it's simply a matter of practicing enough to keep my fingers loose.

My chief rival -- the guy who wanted my recital slot because he had foolishly scheduled his recital for December, and the professor we shared at the time thought it was my obligation to give him my november slot because my pieces were already memorized -- has his recital on Friday, November 6. It's probably safe for me to practice on campus at any time now. If my rival hears something that I'm playing and decides to change his own program, it will hurt him far more than it would hurt me, as only a complete fool would think he could perfect a new piece of sufficient complexity to be used in a senior recital in less than a week. I think both of us were fools to have remained with the professor I had and he still has for as long as we did, but I at least cut my losses and found a new professor.

Other than practicing, I'm resting this weekend. I will return to the dorms Monday night. I'm keeping a low profile and keeping my activities to a minumom until my recital is a finished deal on November 15, after which I will celebrate in a big way. I still have finals and my early February violin recital with which to deal, but I'm not terribly concerned about either. I've worked hard up to this point and am confident that I will handle both with ease. I am holding off on snowboarding during Christmas vacation just to prevent anything disastrous, i.e. a broken arm, before my violin recital. Assuming everything goes as planned, I'll take a week off right after my recital to snowboard. My pseudorelatives are traveling to Utah at that time, and they've invited me to come with them. I've decided to take them up on their offer.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to practice, but not too much, asone can overpractice, with results that are often counterproductive.

Insomnia Chapter Seventeen Thousand

I'm awake again when I should be asleep. I slept too much during the day yesterday and am now paying for my daytime slumber. I haven't had enough energy even to record anything decent on my TV, so I'm stuck with On Demand and the very limited pickings that are on now. Were it not for Comedy Central there would be positively nothing worth watching, but Comedy Central had the Daily Show during the last half-hour and now The Colbert Report next, so I will not perish from lack of mental stimulation.

My parents do not think I should participate in any Halloween festivities tonight (as in sixteen or so hours from now). I will take their opinions into consideration, but this is very likely my last Halloween here in the Halloween capital of the west coast. One of the freshmen has a wheelchair from the campus health center that he keeps forgetting to take back. I'm not sure why he has it. He's not even sure why he has it. It's probably safe to assume that alcohol is somehow related to how the wheelchair came to be in his possesion, but beyond that I really cannot even speculate. In any event, the guy has offered to push me all over the off-campus community. Since I cannot walk very far, I may take him up on his offer.

My pseduoaunt and pseudouncle went to a costume party tonight. They took their niece [Jared's little sister] with them, as they went as a gypsy couple, and the niece was Baby Maria, the blond gypsy in Greece. Her mother braided her hair into several small braids last night before she put her to bed so it would have almost twenty-four hours to get all messy, then pulled a bit more of the hair out with a crochet hook to make the hairstyle more authentic. Then she dipped the ends of child's braids into diluted brown tempera paint to make it look as though the hair had been dyed brown months ago but that no one had bothered to keep the dye job current. Then the mother gave her a stamp pad, stamps, and paper to play with so her hands would be suitably filthy, and they gave her popsicles to eat, so her face was filthy as well. My pseudoaunt wore a colorful skirt and bare midriff blouse with hair scrunchies from the 90's down her arms. My pseudouncle allowed temporary dye to be put into his hair to darken it, and didn't shave for two days. He supposedly looked the most authentically Roma of all of them.

My pseudoaunt said they stayed a little longer than they had planned to stay, and Jared's little sister, who is staying with them tonight, fell asleep in the car on the way home. My pseudoaunt would not put the little girl to bed in such a state of filth, so my pseudouncle had to hold her head up while pseudoaunt bathed her and scrubbed her hair. They managed to get most of the paint out of her hair and all the filth off her body. She's a very compliant child, and she slept peacefully while they scrubbed her, brushed her teeth, put her pajamas on, and dried her hair. They're planning on having a child fairly soon if Mother Nature goes along with their plan. I certainly hope they aren't harboring any silly delusions about their own child being similarly docile, because the kid they were scrubbing and drying in her sleep is one of a kind; their own child will scream his or her head off if they even attempt such a feat. I know I would have if someone had tried to mess with my sleep at that age. Little kids may not be crazy about the idea of going to sleep, but once they're asleep, you'd best leave them alone unless there's a fire or equally urgent circumstance.

In the few minutes since I began typing this blog, I've made up my mind: I will take in the Halloween revelry [as a spectator]. John and Erin won't like it, but they really need to get lives of their own so that they do not have so much time to obsess over what I'm doing on any given night. I'm eighteen and therefore old enough to think for myself and to make my own decisions, even if they are stupid decisions.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to make your own stupid decisions.

Pleasant Grove [Accused] Killer

Gypsy Jillian Willis

Since I'm stuck at home recovering from pneumonia this week, and I've finished all major homework and cannot practice either instrument until six days from now, I've been following the Martin MacNeill trial. I'm something of a true crime buff anyway, but this trial is a bit more personal. I've spent considerable time [ but no nights because that's where I draw the line} in the neighborhood where it happened. I worked one day as a paralegal in the Utah County [Provo] courthouse, but in a different division and courtroom. Even if i didn't care about the case my interest would be piqued, but in this particular case I have a morbid interest.

When I was first in the area the summer after the Dr. Martin MacNeill's late wife was found lifeless in the bathtube of the master bedroom suite, no one told me about the incident. Eventually I learned of it and started asking questions. Even though no charges were even pending and as far as the authorities were concerned nothing was even suspicious in the woman's death at that point, neighbors were already talking, and my ears are always open. No one had any great answers for my questions, which heightened my sense of forbiding.

I've seen Dr. McNeill. I've seen Gypsy Jillian Willis, his mistress, who was a witness in the trial today. I've seen miscellaneous family members who shall remain nameless because they never did anything wrong and certainly don't warrant mention in some random blogger's rantings.

Today on the witness stand in the trial, in addition to Gypsy Jillian Willis, were her parents. After they testified on the trial, Dr. and Mrs. Willis answered Vinnie Politan's questions on his Headline News program. I felt incredibly sorry for the couple. They were extremely apologetic regarding their daughter's actions even though nothing she did was their fault in any way. When pressed, they expressed feelings that their daughter was influenced by Dr. MacNeill, although they were quick to state that she was a consenting adult. These people were unusually classy under most difficult and unpleasant circumstances. I really hope that they're allowed to return home to Iowa or wherever it is that they now reside to live their lives in peace. They've been interrupted enough.

EDITED TO ADD ONE OBSERVATION: There seems to be a bit of confusion as to one point. Pundits are bringing up when Gypsy told others that Michele Macneill died. This can be construed in two ways. A) When, according to Gypsy Willis, did Michele MacNeill die? I believe this is the way gypsy Willis' parents understood the question when they answered it. B) On what date, or in what month, did Gyspy Willis actually verbalize to others that Michele MacNeill had died? the pundits ar letting this discrepancy remain unclarified. people are understanding this question in one of the two ways posited here. the two questions are very different. While clearly Gypsy Willis knew exactly when Michele MacNeill died and she was being untruthful if she suggested any date or month other than April of 2007, suggestionsfrom her that the death had happened at an earlier time would have been done to pain herself or Martin macNeill in a more positive light. On the other hand, if she was actually telling people two months prior to Michele MacNeill's death that Michele was dead, it is highly incriminating both to herself and to Martin MacNeill. The two suppositions are entirly different, and the pundits are missing out on this.


I do want to state that the scenic mountain meadow backdrop behind Dr. and Mr. Willis doesn't look much like what I saw outside the Provo courthouse, although I haven't scoped the entire ara looking for angles and scenic views. Maybe that's the real view somewhere out there.

My pseudoaunt and pseudouncle are totally caught up in this case. They lived in a nearby community at the time, and lived in the actual town later. Psedoaunt taught in the city where this took place. Pseudoaunt's first name is Jillian, and the people who work in pseudouncle's hospital have taken to calling her "Gypsy Jillian." (Pseudoaunt is figuratvely telling political correctness to go to hell and is dressing up as a gypsy for Halloween this year. She's going to braid her niece's hair so the niece can be Baby Maria from Greece.) Pseudouncle is constantly switching patients' TVs to Headline News during his workday to catch up on the trial, and pseudoaunt records all the action each day even if she watches it live. God forbid that something momentous might happen that pseudouncle misses.

If I were not possibly still harboring a germ or two, I would go watch the action with pseudoaunt. She has cystic fibrosis, and something like influenza has more serious ramifications for her than it does for most people. My dad says I can go to her house and watch the action with her on Friday if I continue to improve at the rate I've presently improving.

This blog is ended. Go now to love and serve the Lord and to give up soap operas if you are normally so inclined, because the real-live soap opera on Headline News is much more compelling.

Everyone's Favorite Senator Ted Cruz

one of the many faces of Ted Cruz

I shouldn't post pictures of Ted Cruz because just looking at them makes me angry, and looking at pictures of him probably evokes a similar reaction in many of my readers. Donna suggested that viewing pictures of Senator Cruz probably made me sicker and caused me temperature to rise. I wouldn't rule it out. For that reason and many others I do not go out of my way to view pictures of the very silly man, but I come across them from time to time without any effort on my part.

Regarding photos of Ted Cruz, not everyone is photogenic, and today's society places far too much emphasis on physical appearance. That being said, Ted Cruz looks goofier in most of his pictures than anyone I know. I wouldn't want someone following me around with a camera and snapping a picture every time I made an expresion that looked even remotely doltish, but I doubt most of us could give a camera so much fodder as does Senator Cruz even if we made conscious effort to look absurd every time the camera clicked. If the man is trying to look silly, he is succeeding.

One of the faculty members on the cellist's adjudication panel last night emailed my mother to tell her how well he thought I played when accompanying the cellist. My mom doesn't ordinarily boast about my skills because hers are far superior, but she said she did email him back that I played last night with a temperature of almost 103, and that while she didn't see or hear the performance, she would assume the cello recital was a conservative showing of my ability as a pianist.

My fever is slowly abating. I checked it a couple of hours ago, and it was 101.8. I would think it should be gone by tomorrow or by Monday a the very latest. I'll still probably be out of classes for a few days after that because pneumonia always leaves me zapped, but by the end of the week I sould be well on the wayto recovery. I still don't know about Halloween plans, but I cannot justify jeopardizing my health just to witness young adults making drunken and drugged out fools of themselves.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to rid yourselves of any and all signs of illness so that you might enjoy the upcoming All Hallows Eve.

a Halloween celebration somewhere near my university from some previous year

I've been following the murder trial of Utah doctor Martin MacNeill, who allegedly gave his wife a cocktail of powerful drugs before she was found lifeless in a bathtub a week or so after she underwent a facelift, reportedly at his urging. This occurred in Pleasant Grove, Utah, where I spent a portion of three summers during my youth. The homes of two close relatives of my hosts in Utah were located close to the MacNeill home, and just knowing something creepy, whatever it was, had happened there was enough to cause me to feel very uncomfortale at either of the two Pleasant Grove homes.

I feel sad for everyone involved in this rather eerie situation. I hope that the outcome of this trial will allow the surviving victims in the situation, whoever they may be, to have some closure and peace.

Even though my temperature is still hovering between 102 and 103, I was able to play for the cello recital at my university earlier this evening. I think I was powered mostly by adrenaline, but I was over-prepared for the recital, so even at 80% capacity I was most likely good enough to impress the panel. At the very least, I did nothing to detract from the cellist's performance . I don't have any details except that the cellist received his grade and that he aced the recital. I left right after the performance without staying for any of he reception, but the cellist texted me with the information. I'm glad that I played for him, and I'm also glad that it's over. It's daunting for me to play for someone in a high-stakes situation when I'm operating on diminished capacity. My mom wanted to play for me, which didn't exactly bolster my confidence, but my dad told her to leave me alone -- that I would play for a little over an hour and then would be finished with all obligations for the rest of the week. My dad went with me because he likes the cello as much as I do. He thought the recital went very well, and he's a relatively tough critic.

I will do absolutely nothing for at least four days. The professors of my Monday and Tuesday classes always record and post their lectures, and the health center has notified all of my professors that I am not allowed to attend class. I hadn't missed a class prior to last week, so I can afford a little downtime. My professors don't want a flu epidemic this early in flu season; if I and the few others who are infected show up all over campus and share our germs, we could start an epidemic that lasts for entirely too long, so everyone is happy to have me stay home. I had to get special clearance to attend the rehearsal last night and the recital tonight even though I stayed pretty far away from everyone at both events. Someone is supposed to give the keyboard and music rack of the pianoI played a thorough cleaning before Monday.

I'm somewhat drugged because I had a steriod injection plus some strong cough syrup to stave off any major coughing fits or wheezing duing the recital. It worked well, but it's starting to hit me now. I consumed major caffeine right before the recital to give me a burst of energy, but I'm crashing now. I carried juice, 7-up, and crackers to my room in case I wake up needing something in my stomach and I'm too weak to make it downstairs.
I have a feeling the next few days may crawl, but I will make it through the weekend. It would be nice to see a little of the Halloween revelry next week, but if taking myself into the situaion would be hazardous, I'll skip it. One must prioritize, and the prospect of observing drunken revelry probably shouldn't be too high on my list.

You can tell just by looking at the picture that Ted Cruz is whining in this mug shot.

Ted Cruz is arguably the biggest threat to democracy and to a decent and functioning society that we have in our nation today.

I have bronchial pneumonia, but i'm on really good drugs, so the illness should soon be history. my parents apparently did not agree about my dad's decision not to gie me antibiotics as a precaution. My dad follows CDC guidlenines and doesn't give me drugs before I develop a bacterial infection because he believes his ownership of a prescription pad does not make me special. My mom thinks he should have looked into his crystal ball to see that I would become more seriously ill without antibiotics.

Even though I have a 103 degree fever, which is a full degree below where I was last night, I played for the cellist's rehearsal, and there's no reason to believe I won't play for his recital tomorrow, although I do have my mother as a backup if something goes horribly wrong.

Good night to anyone who comes across this page. I will be back after I rest for another 24 hours or so.

I WILL Beat This Thing

not actually me, as the hair is too dark and too straight when I'm too sick to straighten it, but you get the idea

My temperature was manageable all day, but tonight it's right back above 104 again. My dad says if it shoots up again tomorrow I need to take antibiotics and probably to get a chest Xray Friday morning. I will hope it is gone tomorrow. My dad could get away with giving me antibiotics earlier, but he's very conscientious and follows CDC recomendations on any given illness before giving antibiotics. Doctors worldwide need to follow the protocol if they don't wish to create antibiotic-resistant strains of bacteria. With this particular strain of influenza or whatever it is, five nights of moderately high temperature has been determined to be a normal interval of illness. Once the fever reaches day six, it has exceeded its limits, and there is probably secondary bacterial infection. I would prefer that it go away, although taking a three or four pills a day is a minor inconvenience in the grand scheme of things.

Today's midterms were a minor inconvenince -- a mere blip on the radar screen. They tests were more or less as I would have written them had I been givn the privilege of creating examsfor the courses I'm taking. I studied all the right material. Actually I studied all the material, but I agree with what the professors chose for inclusion on the midterm exams.


Tomorrow early evening I have a dress rehearsal for the cello recital. My mom will show up too just in case I get sicker and she has to play for the recital. She doesn't need tobe there to play the music. She's probably played it all bfore, and she could have played it perfectly withou ever having seen it before, but if she's actually called into service, the cellist will feel more at ease knowing that she attended the rehearsal.

So I will sleep all day tomorrow, then play for the rehearsal. Then I'll sleep all day Friday, then play for the recital. Then I'll sleep all day Satruay and Sunday, and I'll hope I'm able to drag myself to classes on Monday.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to sleep until your sleep is reclassified as hibernation.

still Fighting This Bug

She looks just about how I feel right now.

I'm still fighting this rather pesky bug. My temperature stays between 103 and 104.4. It's in the high 103 range most of the time. I have two midterms tomorrow and one Thursday, but I'm going to take all three of them in at the health center tomorrow in order to minimize the number of people I potentially make sick. The professor for my Thursday class trusts me not to contact anyone in the class with information about the exam, and I will not betray her trust. My dad is paying three graduate assistants to give me the exams. (Yes, I know my dad is a generous person, but keep in mind that he hasn't had to pay for one cent of my education up to this point. He's getting off very lightly when it comes to financing both my education and my brother's.) They don't have to stay in a room with me while I'm actually taking the test. I'll probably just sit in a lounge chair outside if the weather is still nice. Then I won't be germing up an office. I'll meet the grad student assistants at the health center and they'll supervise my belongings while I take the tests. I hope to start at 10:00 and finish by 1:00. It's easy money for the grad student assistants. They can be on their computers the entire time. All they need to do is certify that I had no access to my computer or notes and that I didn't cheat.

I hope to be back in the dorms next week, as Halloween in the dorms and in the off-campus community is unparalleled. On the night before Halloween, little kids from the community (the families who live by campus are usually a bit underprivileged) will trick or treat in the dorms. I will make up little goody bags for the children and will make sure everyone in our part of the dorm has candy to give them. That means I'll have to provide extra so that the freshmen may eat some as well. My aunt Ilianna is paying her daughter-in-law to make popcorn balls and candy apples for the freshmen. My aunt can't make them because she's going to Europe later this week and will be here for almost a month. She says she has the free cookie business covered. As long as the freshmen don't all get sick at the same time, it should be OK. I'm doing my part by staying out of the dorm until I'm better.

Maria, the sweet little girl found in a gypsy dwelling in Greece

I have a raging fever of 104.2. My throat is more scratchy than sore. I'm developing a cough, and my head is throbbing.

I would like to go to class tomorrow but my dad and my aunt say it would not be fair to the other people in the class or to the person or people who might sit where I had been sitting when the next class met in the room. It bothers me to miss classes, but I haven't missed any yet. I have two midterms later in the week and will have to go to class then, ready or not. I could get a doctor's note, but I don't like to do that. I think professors are skeptical of such notes.

I read about Maria, the poor little girl found in the gypsy settlement in Greece. Her blond and blue-eyed coloring gave her away as not belonging to the gypsy family who had her.
I really wonder where they found her. I hope the authorities find her real parents very soon.

I read with interest of Dick Cheney's fear that terrorists would electronically tamper with his pacemaker. To me that seems far-fetched even if it was in a movie plot or Law & Order episode or whatever. On the other hand, perhaps such actions are not just the stuff of movie and TV seies plots and maybe I'm the one who is naive.

So I'm presumably housebound until Wednesday, when I have two mid-terms. I won't even bother practicing my instruments, as I've found it doesn't do much good to practice when I'm sick. I'll just stay in bed and rest as don't really feel like doing anything.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord and to stay away from any nasty flu germs.

Enough Is Enough

The Fall 2013 Edition of The Big Push has officially concluded. About two hours ago, I typed the final words on my one remaining essay, printed the document, and sent it electronically to my professor. All I need to do for the remainder of the quarter is to show up and to complete three midterm exams, for which I've studied, and four finals (three of my courses have no midterms or finals), for which I have thoroughly prepared and need only review the material.

It's good that I've finished my work, as I have a scratchy
throat, a headache, and a bit of a fever. If I get sick, I can do so in peace without fifteen million assignments and textbook and related course readings for five classes hanging over my head.

What I have is not likely to be strep. It's more likely a classic cold or flu, possibly with some croup or bronchitis thrown into th mix just for a little added excitement. My Aunt JoAnne, who is an ENT, said she will come to check on me tomorrow. I have a few comfort-related pills stored away, but I don't like to take anything very potent without running it by someone who knows more than I when i'm sick, as opposed to when I'm having pain from some past injury. in the case of an old injury bothering me, I take medicine exactly as prescribed.

I have just two classes on Monday, which I will try to attend, but I will come home to sleep if I'm sick. There's no point in making the entire dorm sick needlessly. I have just over three weeks until my senior recital in piano.
I'm feeling reasonably prepared for that. everything hass been memorized for months. Once I finish my piano recital, I'll be able to focus on my violin recital.

I am the piano accompanist for a guy's cello recital on Friday. I will surprise him and not take his check. I am not sufficiently in need of the money to take it from my fellow students who are struggling more than I. If the cellist were a trust fund baby, I'd take the check, but he's not.

This blog is ended. Gon now to love and serve the Lord and to pay your piano accompanist even more than the going amount . . . if you're a trust fund baby.

The House Is Divided

Last night a stenographer on the floor of the House of Representatives chamber overtook the microphone and shouted gobbledy-gook no sequitur sentences, starting out with "The House is divided."

She continued her rant. “He will not be mocked! This is not one nation under God. It never was. The greatest deception here is this is not one nation under god! It never was. Had it been, it would not have been! The Constitution would not have been written by Freemasons! You cannot serve two masters! You cannot serve two masters! Praise be to God, Lord Jesus Christ."

All of this went down during the vote to raise the debt ceiling and end the government shutdown, and was rather unsettling to the members of the U.S. House of Representatives who were present. Anyone kooky enough to spout such madness in the decorum of a House roll call is probably sufficiently off-kilter to do all sorts of things.

In an interview with the stenographer in question, Dianne Reidy, and her husband, formerly a Pentecostal minister in Florida, credit for the inspiration belongs to the Holy Ghost, who, according both to her husband and her, rather directly dictated the verbiage for her shout-out. If I'm correctly understanding the interview, the husband knew his wife was going to do the House floor call to repentance or whatever her announcement was, and did nothing to dissuade her. I suppose metal detecters and similar security measures presumably in place at the Capitol building are a very good thing. I, for one, am very glad this woman was not able to enter the House chambers armed. Our government has had more than enough bad publicity in recent weeks without this incident, but at least it did not end in bloody carnage.

Anyone who reads this is free to disagree,but I think the woman is bat-shit crazy. Perhaps her conduct to this point has been beyond reproach. In the climate of today's political arena, however, caution must be exercised. What happened last night could have been ugly.

I'm following the trial of Martin MacNeill, who has been charged with the murder of his late wife. She was found unconscious and presumably dead inthe bathtub of their home about eight days after undergoing a plastic surgery procedure. I've been very close to the home and have actually seen MacNeill in person, though I have never spoken with him.

Right now The Big Push is on in full force. I got a bit of a jump on it by knocking out three papers in the three preceding nights. This Big Push should be relatively short-lived as Big Pushes go, which is fine with me. I still think the idea of knocking out any assignment that can be done in advance is a sound idea. The practice has served me well throughout my high school and college enrollment.

I'll read a bit more, write one more research paper, compose two essays, and call it a day, possibly as early as tomorrow. I'm not complaining about my light academic load this quarter. God knows the hours of practicing I must put in will more than compensate for any ease in academic difficulty and workload.

This blog is ended. go now tolove and serve the Lord, but all of us would appreciate it if the religious zealots would keep any religious rantings you may have in your radar off the floors of the chambers of legislative bodies of our goverment.

your tax dollars and mine

the fiasco as it unfolded



I really should be asleep, but I need to comment on a topic so I won't forget it.

Did anyone else read or hear about the Walmart shoppers whose EBT cards erroneously had no limits? The infamous and concience-deficient retailer's local management clearly knew there was a problem but continued selling their merchandise away to the conscience-deficient recipients.

Who ultimately pays for this? Will the computer glitch allow the government to pinpoint who defrauded the goverment of what? Will those people be charged with welfare fraud, or will they get away with it because of the banking system that allowed it to happen? Will they perhaps not get anymore entitlement aid until what their cards paid out equals what they should have received, however long that takes? Will their children go hungry while they play with new toys and their parents play with their own new toys while waiting for aid to kick in again?

As much of a hassle as it would be, does anyone else see the need for the government to issue vouchers for rent, food, and clothing to these people rather than handing them cold hard cash or debit cards? I believe the very worst of what happened was in Louisiana and not where I live, but since it's funded by the federal government, that is my money, too. I've been paying federal income tax since I was fourteen. What I've paid is not a whole lot, but I have paid it, noetheless. I resent my hard-earned money being deducted from my paychecks so that Walmart could allow themselves to profit along with the lawless benefit recipients from this admittedly unbelievably incompetent error.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the lord and to get some sleep, as I intend to do.

The Lens Through Which I View Things: Trying To Be More Open-Minded to Diversity and to the Practices of Others

I don't know if these are all of the pastors featured in "Preachers of LA." It seemed as though there were more, but it may have been my imagination.



I'm very happy to be spending one more night in the familiar and comfortable surroudings of my room at home. I'll return to the dorm immediately following classes tomorrow and probably will do whatever practicing I can do in the dorm. I cannot afford to do that often, as the quality of any practice I get in is less than optimal in the dorm, but it is sometimes important to be social.

Tonight I caught a bit of a TV program on Oxygen that I did not know existed. It's called "Preachers of LA." I don't think it's supposed to be funny, but it is in its own way. Most of the pastors featured in the show are inner city pastors. I can accept that these pastors need to run differnt kinds of churches than ones I've ever attended in order to have a ministry for the people they feel called to serve, and I think diversity is a good thing. I'm guilty of sytereotyping them and assuming that because most of them are black and from a relatively similar theological position, they can get along with one another.

Pastors can't all get along whether or not they hold similar theological views and share ethnicity. Furthermore, status as The Lord's Anointed notwithstanding, it takes a certain level of healthy ego for anyone to appear before a congregation on a weekly basis and attempt to function as a spiritual leader to the flock. I doubt that it matters what the denomination or ethnicity. You could fill a room with Mormon bishops, Catholic priests, Episcopalian or Anglican priests or vicars or whatever they're calling themselves these days, or Methodist ministers, and you would have the same sort of jockeying for position. Such behavior certainly isn't unique to the black Christian religious culture.

There's an added dynamic in their ethnic group possibly being more forgiving and more open to the idea that their clergymen are only human and can err just like anyone else. Extramarital liaisons of varying sorts happen in all of Christianity, Judaisism, and presumably every major and minor world religion. Black evangelical Christianity is somewhat unique in that a pastor typically continues to function in a clergy role.
Maybe the situation is truly that the people are less judgmental and not that their standards are lower in term of what they demand of their clergy. Or perhaps middle class white church congregations demonize "sex sins" while the African-American Christian community is more realistic and even more Christ-like. I really don't know.

Still, it gets my attention when I see a bishop sitting on the piano with his Baby Mama, rubbing her bottom. Maybe I just find such behavior in front of any third party to be unconventional because I was raised with the white middle class ethic of keeping intimacy behind closed doors. If they're just as happy as my parents and are not harming anyone else by their actions, who am I to say it's wrong? I'll leave that for a higher power to decide, but I probably will never engage in similar openness in my own life no matter who I marry.

I need to get to campus early tomorrow to practice for two hours with my cellist before my first class. I really want his recital to go well, and I really want to impress his adjudication panel with my skills as a pianist. Three out of his five adjudicators will be my piano adjudicators. I want any preconceived notions they have before they walk into my recital next month to be good ones.

This blog is ended. Go now to love and serve the Lord and to watch "Preachers of LA" if you get the chance and haven't already seen it. It is most enlightening.

Elephant Crushes Zookeeper in Missouri Zoo

I would assume this is Patience, although it could be a stock photo.

A 62-year-old zookeeper was crushed to death by a 41-year-old three-ton female elephant named Patience. (Attempts at humor regarding the ironic nature of her name are not appropriate at this time.) The elephant paused in the tunnel or shoot connecting the elephant barn to the elephant exhibit area. The zookeeper --specifically the elephant manager -- reached in with a training device of some sort. The elephant apparently grabbed the device and pulled the man into the elephant enclosure before he could or would let got of the device.

The zoo does not plan to euthanize the elephant, nor, according to reports, is any disciplinary action planned. Such was the wording of the zoo's press release. While I find absolutely nothing remotely amusing about this incident, I find the part of the release concerning disciplinary action somewhat odd. were disciplinary action to have been taken, against exactly whom might said disciplinary action have been? The deceased? Against the deceased's subordinate employees, who pulled the elephant off the man as soon as was humanly possible? Against the elephant, as in putting the elephant in time out a day after the attack, or perhaps a civil judgment against the elephant, which might include punitive damages? While elephants are legendary among animals for their long memories, conventional logic would dictate that Patience would not have had any idea why disciplinary action was being taken against her after much of an interval. Moreover, I seriously doubt Patience's neighbors in the elephant enclosure would have been deterred by any action taken against Patience.

I understand that zoo officials had a tough call to make in deciding whether or not Patience was to be euthanized, but surely safety concerns rather than thoughts of retribution, justice, rehabilitation, or punitive action guided the decision to spare the elephant's life. (For the record, this elephant had displayed aggressive behavior prior to the attack. It must have been a tough call to make, and I do not envy those burdened with making it. They are likely to face second-guessing regardless of their decision, as they were pretty much damned if they euthanized the elephant and damned if they did not do so.) Who wrote that press release, anyway? How much is the author of the release being paid? Even if the salary is minimum wage, I would venture that the employee is overpaid.

My sincere condolences go to the family and friends of the deceased.

This blog has ended, although I may return at some point later in the day. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord, and to be mindful of the sheer force with which Mother Nature has endowed elephants. While they may appear docile and be portrayed as such in works of fiction, such is obviously not the reality.

Freshmen and creepy movies are enough to ruin a weekend.

Between Jurassic Park in my room [because my brother couldn't bear to watch it alone] and freshmen who were invited for dinner last night but extended their stay to an overnight sleepover, my weekend has been stolen -- time lost that I will never regain. I was able to vouch for the stragglers and reassure my parents that they wouldn't escape with the silverware, so my parents didn't have to guard the door and shake everyone down before they left late this morning.

My brother came home today home and was watching Jurassic Park. I was on my laptop catching up on correspondence in the family room until Jurassic Park started to freak me out. I moved into my bedroom. My brother got lonely, so he came into my room,sat on my recliner, grabbed the remote control to my TV, and turned Jurassic Park on in my room. I told him that the reason I had exited the family room was to get away from Jurassic Park. He argued that I was missing the really cool part. I just tried to block my view as much as I could. I hope I don't have Jurassic Park nightmares.

As predicted, we didn't get rid of all the freshmen last night. One boy and seven girls stayed over. We had enough beds and sofas for everyone. My parents cooked breakfast and packed lunches. Everyone was gone by 11:00 a.m. That gave me a little time to rest up for The Big Push and to put in five hours of piano/violin practice.

I'm caught up on studying for this week, so I'm just practicing instruments today and tomorrow. I'll return Monday in time for class because I'm spending Sunday night here. My Aunt Ilianna will have more cookies for me to deliver. Last week she made a huge batch of chicken soup for the kids when they were sick, and put it into crock pots in the main downstairs lounge. The freshmen ate it all. I think my aunt should quit her volunteer job as a school nurse at a local parochial school and just take care of the kids in my dorm. My fellow residents are more appreciative of her efforts than are the children in the parochial school, and any time she spends is time I do not have to devote to their care and well-being. She's a pediatric nurse practitioner who has successfully raised four kids. As such, she's far more qualified to help these freshmen than I am. She fills in for various personnel at the university health center from time to time, as does her husband, an OB-GYN who is also board-certified in emergency medicine.

I start The Big Push on Thursday, but with just a bit of luck, it could be over by Monday, as I have fewer academic courses than I've had, and I've gotten a bit of a jump start. I will only practice enough that I will not lose any skill or dexterity where my instruments are concerned -- maybe an hour a day on each instrument. A local catholic organist asked me to fill in for several masses next Sunday. I don't have time, but my mom wants them to keep calling me when they have openings, so she's going to fill in. She's a far more skilled organist than I am.

This blog is ended. Go now in peace to love and serve the Lord, and be careful with cheesy movies from the late eighties and early nineties. The special effects are not realistic enough to fool you but are, nonetheless, still capable of producing serious nightmares.