A Song 65 Million Years in the Making, and the Soundtrack to My Life

I don't know if this is normal or not, but I go through life with a near-perpetual soundtrack playing in my head, with small rests along the way for particularly dramatic moments. When I was younger I used to imagine my life as a movie and tried to figure out what pop song would play during the credits; I usually came up with something pretty cheesy. Anyway, on to the point of this post: playing the piano.

Playing the piano has gone from being a chore while in school to an absolutely amazing form of stress relief. After a particularly trying day, I can sit at the piano for an hour or two just playing some of my favorite songs. Like today. I transitioned from the classical (Fur Elise) to the sappy pop (Kelly Clarkson's Because of You) to the angsty teen (Something Corporate's Konstantine has an amazing piano part) to the movie scores (Theme from Romeo and Juliet and the Theme from Jurassic Park). But a weird thing happened while playing the piano today. The Jurassic Park theme has always been one of my favorite songs, but I would always have to stop halfway through because the music got too difficult. Until today.

You see, I forgot to stop playing and just kept going, and I actually made it all the way through the song. There were a few hiccups here and there while my fingers learned chord progressions for the first time, but they figured it out and on my second run through the music (did I mention it was my favorite?) there was almost no break between the old parts I knew well and the new parts I just learned. By the third and fourth run-through, I was playing one complete song. I was shocked.

This isn't the first time I've noticed that I became a better piano player when it became an activity I did because I wanted to and not because I had a lesson coming up. I play a mean Moonlight Sonata (don't question my choice of adjective here...just roll with it) now too. I'm excited to see what other songs that used to flummox me will suddenly become easier.

The one thing that I can't yet do is just sit down and play, without seeing music first. I really wish I could just let my fingers fly and see what comes out, but it never works for me the way I imagine it in my head. I suppose the soundtrack to my life movie--since I obviously will have to play it myself--will be an eclectic selection of music capped by the Theme from Jurassic Park. I wonder what it would take to get John Williams to score my life movie....

For anyone NOT familiar with the Jurassic Park theme, I'm not sure how we can be friends, but here it is for you. This definitely makes me happy (the part beginning at 0:47 is perhaps the best few bars of music ever written, in my opinion):

A Post Two Years in the Making: I Don't Like Trust Falls

I actually started compiling these thoughts two years ago, but without an outlet to express them (besides a series of Post-it notes I just found in a desk drawer I'm pretty sure I haven't opened in two years), they've been sitting in my head as I've mulled them over. But tada! I now have this blog, so here it goes.

About two and a half years ago I was in a training class for work and task number one was to get to know our other classmates. Obviously, nothing says "I know you" like completing a trust fall. Well, I don't do trust falls. I don't like them, and it is in part a trust issue. I know that if I was instructed to catch myself I would, but how can I get inside the mind of someone else and guarantee I wouldn't slam to the ground? Needless to say, I was not thrilled with this activity, so I carefully sized up the whole class looking for someone I felt like I just might be able to trust. I'm not saying the other members weren't trustworthy, but I just met them; how would I know?

This trust fall issue got me thinking, though. Was there anyone in my life--family aside--I would like to do a trust fall with? I determined that the answer to that question was somewhere between "probably not" and "not in a million years." I have friends, but that's a lot of power to give up, and for someone who prides himself on having some level of control of his life, it's just not something I'm willing to readily give up for a silly game. Still, I wanted to diagnose my trust issues.

I blame it on the school system I came up through. In my suburban NJ town, there were eight(ish) elementary schools, two(ish) middle schools, and six high schools in a regional district that also had students from seven nearby towns. I was one of seven kids from my elementary school in my middle school, and one of six kids from my middle school in my high school. And then I went to college several hours away. Thus, I was constantly making new friends but don't think I ever got very close to anyone because within a few year, I'd be with a new crowd and have to start the process over again.

It's something I'm working on. Life is not a solo run, and having good friends--great friends you can count on to catch you when you fall--is necessary. I think I'm getting there, but it's a mindset change that's requiring me to give up some of that control that had worked for me so well these past 20-something years.

That training class had a happy ending. After huffing and puffing my way through it, I completed a trust fall, but I was super nervous the entire time. I did NOT, however, do the next task: the human pinball. That was too many people to trust in such a short time. Perhaps in the future I'll be able to just throw my hands up and enjoy whatever comes my way.

In the meantime, at least this didn't happen to me:

An Introduction, and a Promise or Two

I've been meaning to start a blog for awhile now. It's not because I think I do anything all that exciting that everyone should be reading--in fact, I'd venture that the opposite is true--but I think blogging about my life in the suburbs could be a great way for me to chronicle things and realize that I am doing much more than I realize. Plus, some really good friends of mine keep up blogs and I'm jealous of their use of the internet as a creative outlet. So, here it is. Life from the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, DC, as told from the eyes of a mid-20-something career-oriented male.

I'm still trying to figure out how I'm going to organize this blog, but here are a few promises I hope to keep. Even if no one reads this, I hope to use this list to guide me:

1. I will post a video of something that makes me happy at the bottom of every post. If you watch Ellen on TV or follow her on Twitter (yep, I'm admitting that I do from the outset), then you might have seen some of these videos before I post them. But they still make me smile, and I hope they do for you too.

2. I will not talk about politics. Politics/international affairs is my day job; this blog is me, and my career is not me, just a part of me.

3. I will not call any of my friends or acquaintances out by name. I've read enough horror stories of people complaining about someone only to realize that that person has read the blog. Oops. And in that light, this blog will most certainly not become a vent fest. That's not fun, and no one wants to read that.

4. I will strive to post once a week, give or take. I mean, I have to be doing something each week, or have something on my mind, right?

5. And finally, I will do my best to use proper English and not devolve into colloquialisms. Primarily, I know I overuse the word "so" and it makes me uncomfortable. Others may not notice it, but for me it's like getting pricked by a needle every time I use it. So (ugh!), that is something I'm trying to do to make myself better.

To sum up, hopefully anyone who has ventured this far in the post has enjoyed it and looks forward to another entry in the coming days. And as promised, here's a video of chicken cops breaking up a rabbit fight: