Category archive

It can be argued that any reader/writer relationship revolves around a transaction. The writer offers an insight, or shares an experience, or somehow provides new context for something the reader is working through. The reader places value in what has…

  I’ve been playing twice a day for about twenty minutes each sitting. It hurts afterward, but so does PT, so I figure as long as it doesn’t linger too long, I’m safe. I savor every note, and am grateful…

Since my cello career is a bit up in the air, I’m trying out some new things. I’m brushing up on html and adding CSS via Code Academy to bolster my writing and copyediting skills. So far, so good: but…

Been playing a little bit- just a passage here and there with students. It still hurts and I am without a diagnosis, but can stagger through Go Tell Aunt Rhody and some Lee Duets, which is better than nothing. Thank…

For better or worse, moving east was a fresh start for me. The list of pros and cons is long, with the leading con being a drastically lessened performance career until very recently. 2014 saw a resurgence in ensemble playing,…

  This used to be a blog almost exclusively about the cello. It began in 2007, when I was starting to hit my stride as an instructor, and I experienced this huge high when I could help walk folks through…

Ever since I can remember, fall has been my favorite season. Growing up in southern California, it was blessed relief from summer’s persistent cloudless urgency. Not a lot of color to be had; perhaps a liquid-ambar would make an ass of…

Summer has always been my least favorite season, even though many wonderful things have happened during the June-September interval. It’s better when there are thunderstorms, but this summer seemed dry and without much character of its own. In June, my…

Spring was punctuated by two jarring events: a move into a house that needed extensive work to be habitable, and a trip across the country to visit LA and teach at a camp in Texas.     I had been…

2014 began on crutches, as I recovered from knee surgery after a beer-league hockey accident. The highlight of the experience was having Caps defenseman Mike Green hold the door to Kettler open for me, and without thinking, I said, “Aw cheers,…

Having been discovered by a passerby before they could strike, the two would-be assailants are relegated to the garden. Piney does not wish to press charges, choosing to bid the naughty little pumpkins “a simply marvelous season” instead, which only…

  A closer look at the intruder.

  Olivier and Sebastian are suspicious of the new visitor to their stoop. The tag still attached indicates that he is going to be returned- the sooner the better.

  “….I confessed that I had a burning desire to be excellent, but not faith that I could be. Martha said to me, “There is a vitality, a life force, a quickening that is translated through you into action, and…