Dawn Xiana Moon: Melodic folk pop infused with passion and honesty. From Chicago.

Randomness Archives • Blogroll Me! • Atom XML Feed • RSS Feed

Sunday, August 20, 2006

On Cell Phones and Being a Monkey

Shortly after I woke up, I discovered that Lauren’s family has a Kawai grand piano. And it’s beautiful, both aesthetically and sonorously. Apparently Lauren’s mother is a great lover of live music, so after lunch she tentatively requested a couple of songs. I was more than happy to oblige, and Lauren assured her mother that I am, in fact a monkey who loves to perform. What struck me as funny was when I asked what I should play, Lauren’s mom kept saying, “Play something you like,” which amused both myself and her daughter since I wrote almost everything I play. Of course I’ll play something I like—I certainly don’t do this for the money. (Two people were walking down the street. One was a musician. The other one didn’t have any money either.)

The night before I’d realized that I’d left my cell phone charger back in Redford, Mich., an hour and a half drive away, so I was in a bind; I spent the afternoon calling Sprint and various other places in the hope of tracking down another charger. Every person I talked to looked at me in disbelief: “You should get a new phone. We don’t have chargers for those anymore, they’re too old.” The best solution I could find was a Radio Shack charger with a combination of end pins, one of which would fit my (apparently ancient) phone. The catch? It cost $30 and was in Grand Rapids, Mich., which would be a significant, though not wholly terrible, detour. Just as I was about to give up hope, I stopped by another Sprint store on a whim and they managed to find the correct charger. The best part? “How much does it cost?” “You can just have it—I don’t have a bar code for that one, so I guess it’s free.”

In between all of the cell phone madness, Lauren convinced me to go rock climbing—in the middle of a store. In Lansing, Dick’s Sports has a climbing wall in their store, which resides in the mall. It was an unlikely spot, but I chose the intermediate wall (it was my third time ever doing this, after all) and spent about 15 minutes making my way to the top amid Lauren’s encouragements (she was more amused by the prospect of watching me than climbing herself—and she was wearing a skirt). Just a few minutes of work, and my arms and hands were tired for hours. Literally—even after playing that night’s concert in Holland, I could feel those muscles.

^ Top | 2:37 PM | | |