The Gaytriot's Journal: Old Friends

I've had a decent couple weeks. I've kept busy, at least this was being busy doing things that I want to do, which is much more preferable to the other shit I have to do.

I got a message today by my old friend Koki, a Japanese tuba player I met while I was studying trombone performance at the Boston Conservatory. I quit the conservatory after that year, though. My problem was that there were a lot of shallow, weird ass people there. But in the midst of a bunch of fakes and weirdos I'd made a few good friends, Koki was one of them. We used to play Tuba duets together, I would just play the upper part which was usually high enough to be played on the trombone easily enough. I probably learned more about playing from doing that than I did from the school. In exchange for that, I showed him Counter-Strike. We used to game some old school CS (only because our crappy laptops couldn't handle Source) in my dorm room.

We had an odd ritual on Friday nights after our last rehearsals. We would go to the cafeteria at NorthEastern Univ., since the BoCo didn't have it's own, then we would go back to my dorm room and play some serious CS and half-life coop for hours. Then we would get our horns, get into the school and chat with the security guard in the main lobby. We knew him pretty well, he would open up one of the concert halls for us to play in at night, we just had to leave by 2am when he went home.

We'd play for a while up there, and usually ended up opening one of the massive windows and sitting outside on the ledge. If we wanted company we could usually keep the window open and play, any friends walking by outside would hear the music from the 3rd floor and come up to join us. Otherwise, when we'd had enough we would pack up and go down the block to the little corner store. We always picked up a carton of Extra pulp OJ each. He had an odd affinity for OJ, he would drink it all the time and I must have picked it up from him.

Those were some good times. I enjoyed practicing, I enjoyed most of school, and I enjoyed playing in general. What I didn't like was Boston, I'm just not a big city kind of guy. Or maybe it was just the shock of being somewhere new and by myself.

Either way, now I'm back home and work is work, school feels like work, and I barely play anymore. But I got an MSN message from my friend Koki tonight and it just made me think. I wish I'd kept in touch more with my friends from Boston. A couple of them I talk to fairly regularly because they are on instant messaging every so often. Koki used to be, but after I left Boston I hadn't seen him online until tonight. He's actually going to school in Utah now, only one state over from Colorado. I'll probably make plans to do the eight hour drive out there to see him in a few weeks when I have a break from school, we'll see.

I actually look forward to it, I have a few friends here but it can often times be an ordeal trying to get together to do anything. Part of the trouble is that my schooling is year round and my breaks between terms are smack dab in the middle of their semesters. If Koki can make some time for me, I'm more than willing to do the 16 hours round trip to get out there to Utah.

I guess that's a big part of them problem with people. I can't seem to get them to make the time for me very often. I have a decent career getting started, and my school is doing well, and everything seems to be going great. But I've said it before, I'd be willing to trade that for a decent social life instead.
I think some other people already have a decent social life going on or are so busy with whatever they are doing that they don't see any point of taking extra time out for that.

Right now I feel like I'd rather work as little as possible so that I can live, but I wonder if I will end up getting so consumed with my work that it becomes my life. I don't think so, though. I think that's actually part of the reason why I quit music, too, since you really have to be passionate about it and always on the lookout for work. I'd rather not have my work be my life, even if I enjoy it a lot.

Well that's enough for tonight, I'm going to sleep.