Birthday come and gone

Well, it's over. I don't have to obsess about being old for another year (though I will)

Saw the dentist today, got a new set of 20 X rays, and a pronouncement from the dentist that "everything is perfect." At my age, it's considered great if you still have all your teeth. The brushing and flossing are paying off, though they are tedious.

Curtiss is doing well--wiped out for a while by the chemo, but bounces back. He has had about 10 radiation sessions and 2 chemo sessions. I think next week he doesn't get chemo. He is in good spirits and jokes frequently, though it breaks his heart (as he puts it) that I have bad dreams every night. I have had nightmares ever since I was a kid, many of them of the apocalyptic type, or else the type of anxiety dream in which trains are speeding toward me from every direction and I cannot escape. I don't have the train nightmares anymore, though I had them for years. Since 9/11, I have had many nightmares with the theme of immanent death in the form of a plane crashing into a building I am in, or I am in a plane about to crash, or I am scanning the sky and spot a plane about to drop a bomb with the knowledge that we will all be dead in minutes. The garden-variety nightmares are frequent also: gigs gone horribly awry, being caught naked in public, not having finished high school with the gym requirement still to be completed (or a math class)Such is the subconscious life of a person who would otherwise be paralyzed by waking anxiety. I guess I'm grateful for the nightmares. Therapeutic.

I had a depressed day today. Some days, I am relatively cheerful. I'm not sure it has too much to do with objective facts or experience. Today I was beset by resentment for other faculty who appear to be teaching courses they actually like, as opposed to the terminally boring Basic Keyboard 1 and 2, Music Ed 1, and Reading and Comping Labs. Or I would wish that my job involved helping to rehabilitate people or otherwise improve their lives, so I could really be helping humanity, instead of teaching college students to play rudimentary piano. But then I realized that I would probably still be unhappy with whatever job I had because my real desire is to be a woman of leisure. I'm tired of going to work day in, day out. It's killing my desire to play music, too. I can't focus on practicing, though I have to because I have gigs coming up. I wish KeysFest were over already. I feel this way every year before my annual concert. I'm afraid I might burst into tears at the BPC All Faculty Concert when I play my tribute tunes for Dave McKenna. I've been very emotional lately. But with any luck, I will have some equanimity by March 1 (week after next) If not, I'll just have to get through it.