Do we pose ourselves artistically and look adorable atop the piano when there ISN’T a ratty old book ruining the composition for a photo?

No. We wait for a ratty old book to ruin the composition for any potential photos and THEN pose ourselves artistically and look adorable atop the piano.

BOOT! EDGE! EDGE!

I had an entire 70-screen PowerPoint presentation all prepared to impart on Pete (I call him Pete) how much I respect and admire and enthusiastically support him—and how we’d make awesome duet partners at the piano—but there was a bit of a time crunch so we were able to jam on only six piano concerti together. But still. I JUST MET PETE!

Gah! I look 1,000 years old here. I think Pete's photo-taking lady must have hit the wrong filter when she grabbed my camera to take our pictures.

Books I have recently purchased, in alphabetical order:

• Debussy: Favorite Piano Works
• DO NOT LAUGH IT’S FOR BUILDING DEXTERITY AND TECHNIQUE YOU PERVERTS
• Gershwin: Three Preludes for the Piano

I wish I’d written this truly inspired silliness,

if for no other reason than to have a plausible backstory explaining why I’ve never tickled the ivories to Beethoven’s 5th Symphony on any of my parents’ anniversaries.

And so all this helicopter knowledge won’t go to waste.

I SAY I WANT SOME RESOLUTIONS

Here’s last year’s list, amended with variations of CHECK! in front of things I actually accomplished and with updated/new things I have yet to accomplish:

CHECK! I will turn 50 in April (that’s not the actual resolution—it’s just the preamble to the resolution) and to celebrate I will run every race within 100 miles that’s been on my bucket list—plus any other races I discover that sound fun—all summer, culminating in a back-to-back three-day Disney 5K/10K/half marathon in November. [UPDATE: I was sidelined by injuries for two races and I opted not to run the 10K at Disney, but I’m still giving myself full credit for accomplishing all of this. And I can run faster than you if you try to chase me down and explain to me why I didn’t.]

I will finally run the Bix 7 in the Quad Cities this July.

And you should come with me, whether you want to run or cheer or celebrate together at the after-party.

I will continue making the gym and distance running an integral part of my life. Because I’m not getting any younger or less single.

PARTIAL CHECK! I will stop thinking PB&J and Diet Coke are an acceptable dinner.

I will continue enjoying PB&J at all opportunities and I will continue eliminating Diet Coke completely from my diet (14 days and counting!)

MOSTLY CHECK! I will stop launching scorched-earth social-media fights with cousin-curious Trump supporters to the point that I make myself angry every time I open my social media and discover that they still don’t know how to lose and shut up and go away like normal morons.

I will stop losing hours scrolling mindlessly through Facebook and use my newfound free time to pursue something—anything—more productive.

I will keep myself constantly updated on the current slang and the new small talk. And use it only in irony. Because I’m 50. And an adult. I think.

PARTIAL CHECK! I will figure out how to use the universal remote I bought for our TV. [UPDATE: I made multiple attempts last year, and I got it to do everything but change channels via the number keys. PLEASE COME OVER AND HELP IF YOU’RE FLUENT IN TECHNOLOGY.]

I will start (or finish) reading all the books I bought (or received as gifts) in 2018 (or 2017) (or 2016) (or before that).

I will continue to cultivate the wonderful friendships—and keep my distance from drama—that I’ve been abundantly fortunate to have found since I moved home four years ago.

I will quickly learn the names of people I meet, especially when we do shows together. But no promises—I’m mired in a lifetime habit of convincing myself I suck at names and therefore not even trying.

ONGOING CHECK! I will get the hint and cut my losses the first time someone shows me we don’t have much of a friendship and it’s never going to go anywhere.

SOMEONE PLEASE HELP ME PICK A COLOR BECAUSE I’M SERIOUSLY PARALYZED WITH INDECISION! I will bury my tinkle-colored bedroom walls in a deep, rich, handsome, masculine, adult color that I have yet to determine.

CHECK! I will nag and complain without shame or reservation until we replace our pinky-beige, mousy-blah, suburban-horror Formica countertops with something that doesn’t make me want to hide under the sink and slowly die of mousy-blah ennui hastened by poisoning from any store-brand Formica cleanser we have stored there.

I will continue to cull and integrate and sell and give away the two-bedroom-apartment contents of my storage unit ASAP so I can eliminate that $200+/month line item from my personal budget.

I will use my newfound storage-unit savings to pay for regular voice lessons [which I started in December!]

I will make practicing the piano a regular part of my weekly schedule to try and regain some of my long-dormant skills.

I will try to get a gig choreographing something smallish somewhere or finagling my way into playing in an orchestra pit somewhere. [YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE. CALL ME. LET’S TALK.]

I will more regularly give myself private tap lessons from all the YouTube tap videos I’ve found.

I will stop wasting time winding up the vacuum cleaner cord.

I will scoop the cat box twice a week instead of once.

I will finally visit the local museums I’ve been woefully absent from seeing: The African-American Museum, The Czech and Slovak Library & Museum, The Masonic Library and Museums, and any others I discover.

I will work harder (notice that I’m not giving myself any form of schedules or deadlines here) to post more frequent #ArtThrob essays about my favorite works of art.

I will stop accepting Facebook friend requests from strangers just because they’re cute.

I will stop accepting Facebook friend requests from strangers just because they’re cute.

I will stop accepting Facebook friend requests from strangers just because they’re cute.

I will reduce forgetting my bipolar meds from once a month to zeroth a month.

I will avoid the New Year’s Day Rose Parade. And all other parades. Just like always. Because parades are stupid.

A few years ago I made a resolution to say or text or email something nice to somebody—longtime friend or random Internet stranger—every day. The resolution has slowly evolved to also include just texting or emailing a random hello to someone I haven’t talked to in a while and to check in almost daily with people I know are struggling with mental illnesses themselves or in their families. I’m sure I’ve missed a few days here and there, but overall it’s become a happy little daily habit that’s kept me in touch or even reconnected with people from every corner of my 50-year (ACK! How did that happen?) life (except for a handful of guys I’ve had longtime crushes on because I’d die inside whether they did or didn’t respond—and, sadly, at 50 years old (did I mention I’m 50?) I’m still kinda scared of guys I have high-school crushes on). Crippling insecurities aside, I’m renewing my daily-compliment/hello/check-in contract for yet another year. And I encourage all of you to consider trying something similar. Because it’s WAY cheaper than flowers. Or therapy. Happy 2019!

Throwback Thursday: Mally Holiday Edition

Here is a rare, valuable and unquestionably alluring photo of me tinkling the imitation ivories with the McKinley Junior High School orchestra at our gala holiday concert in front of the JCPenney at Cedar Rapids' relentlessly beige Westdale Mall:

You can tell I'm totally into the music because my eyes are closed and my hair is floofing dramatically with every arpeggio I summon from the depths of my artistic soul. You can tell it's a winter concert because of our coats piled haphazardly like broken Christmas dreams in the background. Right in front of the picket fence surrounding the dented-but-still-dancing Santa display that exuded all the holiday magic and wonder of the Midas carburetor aisle. And by the Hawkeye Rose Bowl pin dwarfing my chest. A quick google search tells me the Hawkeyes went to the Rose Bowl in January 1981, which would have put me in seventh grade. A quick reality check says that a giant macho football pin doesn't cancel out the fact that I'm gaily playing "Suzy Snowflake" on a partially tuned, poorly voiced mall piano.

There are giants in your life. And there are GIANTS in your life.

Norita was the giant who towered with loving influence and musical joy over all others while always elevating everyone around her to her level.

As my decade-plus piano teacher, she instilled in me the essential importance of learning technique and mastering both basic scales and fundamental theory; the artful balance of metronomic rhythm and emotional phrasing essential for playing even the simplest of Bach Preludes; a healthy respect for the rigid mechanics I needed to master before I could enjoy the brilliant ornamentation of Mozart; and a lifelong love/hate relationship with the ungainly accidentals layered over the impossible key signatures behind what was undoubtedly her—and subsequently my—lifelong love of the shimmery musical evocations of Debussy.

Her introductory description of Debussy and the Impressionists—that their work wasn’t as constrained by meter as it was driven by emotion—gave me a helpful (albeit transparently clumsy) crutch when she assigned me their pieces: Their works were among the hardest to master and therefore the most frustrating to learn and the easiest to avoid practicing, so I’d often show up for my lessons COMPLETELY unpracticed and try to use the I’m-not-unprepared-I’m-really-just-deeply-caught-up-in-the-emotion-of-these-chords-that-I’m-playing-so-slowly school of rationales as I secretly struggled to wrap my hands around their unfamiliar tangles of notes in front of her. I’m sure she totally saw through my strategy, but she patiently let me struggle there at her piano, no doubt secure in the knowledge that I was still playing the music at least once a week ... even if it was on her time.

First Lutheran Church—where she influenced literal generations of singers as the universally beloved director of children’s choirs from kindergarten through high school—once bought out a production of Forever Plaid that I was doing at Theatre Cedar Rapids 20+ years ago. There’s a moment in the show where I sit at the piano to play a very complicated arrangement of “Heart and Soul” while the other Plaids search the audience to bring me an unwitting duet partner, and on the FLC night they completely randomly selected Norita to bring on stage for our impromptu duet. When I looked up from my playing to find her sitting next to me, both of our hearts soared; I was so proud to show her what her years of lessons had taught me to do, and she was thrilled at the opportunity for us to perform together. And the audience—all FLC members who knew us well and who knew that she’d been my teacher since early grade school—roared with approval over sharing our moment together. I’ve accompanied the FLC choirs she’s directed, I’ve played duets with her at recitals and I’ve been behind the piano at many concerts she’s attended, but that brief, unexpected moment next to her at the keyboard in front of 500 people we both knew and loved remains one of my two favorite memories as a pianist. (The other is conquering the mighty Wilhousky “Battle Hymn of the Republic”—with her considerable help and guidance—and being able to accompany my mighty high-school choir as they sang it at my graduation.)

Norita had been in the ICU this week after complications from heart surgery. My sister had been to see her, but I wasn’t able to get to the hospital until this morning. I brought my sister with me, but the door to her room was shut when we got there as her family met with her doctors. We moved to the waiting room and eventually learned that they were saying their goodbyes, and Norita died soon afterward. While I’m sorry I wasn’t able to see her to maybe hold her hand and say my own goodbyes, my heart continues to soar over the loving memories of her that people are sharing all over social media. She was the patient, loving church mother to thousands of kids who spent their entire childhoods singing in her choirs. She was the consummate musician who tirelessly shared her love of choral and piano music with performers and audiences alike. And she was always a supportive friend to generations of students and choir members she always called “my kids,” even as we reached our 50s and 60s.

Among her many legacies are the careful phrasing and fingering notes she copied from her well-worn piano scores into her students’ new books before she started teaching us new pieces. She had beautiful handwriting, and I—along with countless other pianists—have stacks of music books filled with her thoughtful, helpful notations. And since I can’t find a good photo of the two of us, I’m instead posting this image of Edvard Grieg’s “Papillon”—an Everest of late Romanticism that I regretfully never *fully* conquered—covered in her bright red markings. Just finding and photographing my sheet music filled me with joyful memories of her excitement over introducing it to me, my delight over slowly unlocking its beautiful secrets, and her growing pride over my milestone accomplishments as I became more deft at its mechanics and more expressive with its emotions.

It’s always sad to say goodbye to a beloved friend and mentor, but it’s extremely comforting to know that Norita is being loved and celebrated so happily and so genuinely as word spreads of her passing. Her “kids” will always love and remember her every time we sing in a choir or sit at a piano. And she’s no doubt already spreading her joys of music to hosts of heavenly choirs.

We’ll miss you, Norita. But you’ll always be with us.

Debussy extensions sold separately

10 things I remember about my Grandma Marie

1. She made peach preserves in enormous glass jars every year to share with everyone in the family. Each jar had a cinnamon stick in it, which I thought was weird as a kid because cinnamon of course doesn't go with peaches but that never stopped me from piling indulgent amounts of the preserves on everything I could think of.

2. When her daughter -- a young mother -- lost her husband to cancer, my grandparents renovated their basement to give her and her kids a free, safe place to live so they could care for them until they recovered and got back on their feet.

3. She put up with my dad -- who even by his own accounts was a handful and a seeker of trouble and somebody I probably wouldn't have liked if we'd been peers -- and turned him into the father I love and respect and look up to today.

4. She loved to sing. Oh, how she loved to sing. Her rich contralto filled her church when she sang hymns and filled her home whenever we gathered around her piano or the gorgeous antique pump organ she had that was never in tune and virtually impossible to play but it never mattered because she was so full of joy from singing.

5. Her hair was so gray that it went beyond silver into the realm of misty purple-blue. And she had a wardrobe of purple clip-on earrings that always matched her hair perfectly.

6. She and my grandfather had a little black mutt named Rags, who was sweet and attentive and docile but always kinda smelled like he needed a bath.

7. She loved to make ceramics for people and she actually had a kiln in her basement. She'd paint and glaze each piece, etch her name and the year on the bottom, and fire up beautiful ornaments and decorations that I'm sure still grace the homes of friends and extended family from coast to coast.

8. She had a dishwasher that rolled around the kitchen and connected to the sink faucet with a hose. This really has nothing to do with her as a person, but when you're a kid and your grandmother has a dishwasher that rolls around the kitchen and connects to the sink faucet with a hose, that makes her pretty darn interesting.

9. She was unfortunately enthusiastic about thumping us kids on the head with her finger or some other small weapon -- both as punishment and for her own entertainment. She called herself Granny Great-Thump. We called her Granny Great-Rump.

10. She and my grandfather had an enclosed back porch that ran nearly the entire length of their house, with enough room for a long table and plenty of chairs for feeding a steady parade of family and friends. They even had tiny paper lanterns hanging from the ceiling, which I always thought made the place extra-festive.

Grandma died 19 years ago today, after living trapped in the aftermath of a stroke for many months. She lived exponentially farther away from me than my other grandmother when I was a kid, so I didn't see her as often and I never really felt like I knew her. But she influenced my dad to be the kind, loving, decent, respected man he is, and I hope to think he's influenced me to be the same. So she lives on in our hearts and in our family and in yet another generation as my niece and nephew carry on the examples of kindness and love and decency that she lived.

Flashback Friday: David Or Bust Edition

I used to have cats. I also used to have a cool bust of David on my piano who looked Goliathly jolly in a Santa hat.

Fall goals:

I have never been able to master this tricky little meditation on flitting butterflies by the technically ruthless Norwegian composer Edvard Grieg. (Those! Damn! Norwegians!) I bought a fresh copy of the music last spring and I still know exactly where I hid it, so I hope to re-climb this Mt. Everest again in the next few months. Feel free to pester me about how my practicing is coming along; I respond very well to embarrassment and shame.

Fun fact: The very last note of this song is on the very bottom note of the piano keyboard. Apparently butterflies become very basso the longer they flit.

The Mustache Farewell Tour

This thing eating my face dies a swift and violent death this weekend, and you have only two more chances to come watch it perform astounding feats of magic like play the piano without looking, tap dance in a sailor suit and lift a small child without dropping him.

Tickets: www.theatrecr.org

Can you read my mind?

I continue to be horrified by the artifacts I'm uncovering from my childhood that 1) were really gay and 2) for reasons known only to the gods I never had sense enough to throw away instead of storing them in boxes I was condemning myself to trip over for all eternity.

To wit: every freaking issue of my years-long subscription to Sheet Music Magazine, which delivered to my piano monthly collections of themed sheet music augmented by an occasional interview with a theme-relevant musician. The whole thing couldn't have been any gayer if it included magazine covers devoted to Muppets, the Annie and Superman movies, or beribboned teddy bears pretending to play piano duets.

Take note

I'm a five-plus-years-out-of-practice piano player who just two years ago literally paid a guy to take my beloved but long-neglected piano off my hands so I wouldn't have to move it home from Chicago and store it indefinitely here ... and now I'm playing the rehearsal pianist Mr. Braithwaite in Theatre Cedar Rapids' upcoming Billy Elliott. And I told the directors no problem! I can learn the score and play live on stage so I don't have to unbelievably fake it while the orchestra pianist actually plays it for me! But please don't let anything be in sharps! Because sharps are the black jelly beans in the candy bowl of music! And everyone knows it! Even dead people who are decomposing! HA! Get it? Music! Decomposing!

Whew. Never mind.

Anyway! We had our first dance rehearsal tonight for one of the numbers I intend to play in the show and even though I don't have the piano score yet, the vocal score shows it's in C! No sharps! Not even flats! Just pure, well-composed (ahem) C. Plus it literally has "boogie" in the title so it's pretty much guaranteed to be basic three-chord progressions. Which is just one chord more than you need to play "Chopsticks." So I think I'm up for the challenge.

Unfortunately, my last five years of obsessive but admirably diligent thumb-texting do not equal anything resembling a sustained level of piano-playing dexterity. So I'll be supplementing my daily texting training with some rigorous scales and arpeggios for the next few months.

And while I don't think I've played piano on stage in front of anyone in maybe 20 years, I will be now! And I'm treble-y excited about it. Well, I bass-ically am. No, I am. I flat-out am.

Don't ever let it start

No I will not, in fact, play you Le Jazz Hot, Baby. Because this is just a rehearsal piano. Actually, it's just the tape outline of a piano on the rehearsal stage. Kind of like a chalk outline around a body but in reverse because the piano hasn't even shown up yet to its own hypothetical murder scene.

Besides, I'm sitting crooked so I can't reach all the hypothetical keys.