As I am beginning to write this, it is a few minutes past half-ten on this sunny Wednesday morning, I am smelling fresh-cut grass because someone is outside mowing the grass near the flat, and I am once again telling myself that I should really be packing instead of sitting in front of the computer.
And it seems to strike me that I will be leaving this flat forever in only five days. Never to return and all of that stuff. I will be leaving this state of California, to return in October for the Renegades banquet, and not again until possibly the Drum Corps International World Championships, in Pasadena. That's almost a year from the next time I will be out here.
And something else strikes me -- will I be at DCI next year in the stands, or will I be there on the field? The winter season of drum corps is coming up before I know it, with auditions starting sometime around Thanksgiving. That's really only three months from now, and I have yet to formulate a Master Plan™ of what I am going to do.
And I have a double dilemma.
Since I have been in the Renegades pit this year, I have not played a horn at all since last Thanksgiving, when I went to audition for Phantom Regiment and barely missed the cut. However, I have only been playing in a pit since January, when I joined the Renegades for the second year in a row.
In theory, I could pick up the mellophone again the minute I get back home and practise daily for as many hours as I possibly can in between school and work and hopefully not miss a cut somewhere, and march again next year. However, I would probably need lessons to get me back up to par and to help me maintain a level of goodness that will improve my chances, and I don't know who where I live teaches lessons. Also, my legs are falling apart from the hips down -- bad knees, bad ankles, random things like that -- so marching is probably not the very best idea for me. After all, I will need my legs for the rest of my life.
The other theory is that I could start taking keyboard lessons the minute I return home and practise as much as possible between school and work and go audition for some corps' pit and hope I make it. I could even do auxillary stuff, and I will learn whatever they want to teach me. However, the only person where I live who teaches keyboard lessons is the percussion director where I went to high school, and he is unavailable until next February or so because he's teaching marching band. My other option for keyboard lessons is to drive all the way to Dallas, which is about a three hour drive without bad traffic, to take lessons from someone there -- because Dallas is a big area, and there is bound to be at least one person willing to teach a Romanian chick how to play marimba and/or vibraphone.
The other dilemma is that I am not sure where it would be best for me to go. I could always join the Bluecoats, because they have winter camps in the Austin area and I could drive that, though it's a good six hours. I could go back to Phantom Regiment and try again, and hope I make the cut this time. I could come back out to California for Santa Clara Vanguard. I could go back up north, and go for Blue Stars again. I could stay closer to home and go try out for one of those corps in one of those Southern states that's closer to where I am.
So I need to decide A) where I'm going to be going in November, and B) what I'm going to be playing in November. I probably should have that decision made by... oh, two weeks ago, probably.
But now, it is 1100. I'm going to go start packing, or at least start thinking about packing again, and I might go buy some bread.
