Nobody reads this blog anyway . . .

Here it is, more than five and a half years since my last post. What has changed?

Oh, so very much.

I finally lost some weight this year--about 15 pounds.  Along with a job and a place to live.
I've started working out more. Two days a week I spin and swim for about an hour and a half.
Maybe more today, since I'm so very bummed right now.

Right. About that. I'm back in Maryland, living in my sister-in-law's basement. My brother, her late husband, died in early 2011, so that was a bummer. My mother died a year before that. Dark times, I tell you. On the bright side, I'm getting to know my niece and nephew by watching them from time to time and picking them up at school on Tuesdays.

I had a full time job last year, the first one since moving to New Hampshire in 1999, teaching music at a Jesuit school in Portland, ME. It involved a long commute, spoiled rotten high school kids and very little string music (but there was a bad choir, piano labs, intro to music and some interest in World Music Drumming). They decided I wasn't a good fit (women don't really need to work anyway, right?). Hit the bricks, lady.

So I spread the net wide and landed a part time gig teaching middle school orchestra in Harford County, Maryland. I thought I would be able to pick up some gigs and private students to fill in the gaps. So far, one gig and zero students. The pay is low and I just found out that I'm being docked half a day's pay this week for going back to New Hampshire to play a gig I had booked before I signed this contract.

Here in Maryland, in order to socialize, one must spend money. You can't meet a friend for coffee without spending at least $7. That sh*t adds up.
So, loneliness is setting in.

The days are getting shorter. The holidays are coming. Oh. Joy.

I will go now to the Hopkins Rec Center, where I splurged for a membership when I thought things would be great, to swim a mile and then spin a time trial. Let's see how I feel after that.

It would be nice to meet a friend after, but I only have $8 and will need to pay for parking.

I haven't been this destitute since college.