It was even called 'Starr'

So the other day I went to Sephora to pick up a couple things -- staples, nothing too exciting. I had vague notions about looking for a new blush. I was walking around the Bare Escentuals display when I noticed a section of lip glosses called "Buxom Lips". I saw a color I liked, so I grabbed one of those handy applicators they have all over the store and tried it on.

As I put it on, my lips began to tingle with a very strange and immediate sensation. Being a flute player and thus keenly aware of my lips and their well being, I was more than a little alarmed. I quickly grabbed a tissue, dabbed some eye make-up remover on it (which seemed the better choice than the bottle marked 'alcohol') and wiped off the gloss. They continued to tingle, but it was considerably lessened now that it had been removed.

Yikes! I thought, as a I made my 5th circle around the display checking to see if there was anything I'd missed. As I passed the mirror on the other side of the display, I noticed that I did like the remaining color... very much...

Back to the lip glosses. Maybe I'll try this again... I casually applied the gloss and waited for the tingling to start. As I was waiting, a sales associate came over to see if I needed any help.

"This lip gloss is making my lips tingle. Is that normal?" I asked her.

"Oh, that's the additive in the gloss to make your lips fuller," she replied, nodding as she said this. "It's normal."

I checked out my lips in the mirror. I stuck them out a little to see if they looked any different. It occurred to me that this could actually be helpful to my career. You see, I have somewhat thinnish lips and if my lips were slightly fuller, it could potentially make playing the flute just a tiny bit easier...

"Excuse me," I approached the sales associate, "Do you know how long the effects of this lip gloss last?"

"Oh," she paused, "I'm not sure. Maybe 30 minutes?"

Hmmm... not long enough to make it through a concert. Rats.

For the love of Mozart

So I have this student with one of the oddest, most charming quirks that I've ever witnessed while teaching flute.

She's been working on a piece by Mozart (Andante in C for all you flute folk out there) that she absolutely loves. Throughout the piece there are several cadences, or places where the music naturally comes to an end, as in the final sentence of a great paragraph. At these points, there is 'formula' of sorts that Mozart and his contemporaries used to highlight these moments of completion that goes something like this:

TRILL! - 2 - 3- 4 da da da!

They are the kind of recognizable moments that help define the music of this era. They are lovely, gracious endings that one can count on when playing the music of this time.

My student loves them. I mean, really, really loves them. So much, in fact, that she cannot get through all 4 counts of the trill to the da da da ending because she is smiling too much. So her cadences go something like this:

TRILL! - 2 - 2 1/2 (smile) unfocused air sound - tiny amounts of suppressed giggling - ....

And then she stands up straight, smooths the front of her shirt and says "Okay, sorry," and begins again. She furrows her eyebrows, makes her most serious face, and then... smiling.

I'm not totally sure what's going to happen when she actually plays this piece in public. Her best attempt so far was to hold off the smile until the 3rd beat...

The bah-humbug sister

Here is a transcription of a recent conversation with my sister:

Mel: Jess, I know what I want for Christmas!

Me: Oh! What?

Mel: A curling iron.

Me: (longish pause) . . . no you don't.

Mel: (more insistent) Yes, yes I do!

Me: No, you don't. You have straight hair. The straightest hair of anyone on the planet. You just have to accept this.

Mel: Duh, Jess, that's why I want a curling iron. (slightly offended in tone)

Me: Okay... what size curling iron? (trying to play along)

Mel: The smallest size.

Me: (cutting in immediately) No, no. (the playing along now over) That's just not going to work. How about I get you a gift card to a great salon and they can make you have curly hair for 1 day. It will probably last a couple of hours before it falls out, which will be more curly-hair time than all of the minutes put together that you could get out of a curling iron on your own.

Mel: That's stupid.

Me: You have beautiful hair! Gorgeous straight red hair!

Mel: My hair isn't red. Have you looked at me lately?

Me: It's kind of red...

Mel: No. It's not. (big sigh) Fine. Get me a wig then.

It's kind of like being invincible

A pair of yellow rubber gloves purchased from the local grocery store (yes, the same place I found my amazing swimsuit) has changed my life.

Since childhood I have hated (no really, hated is not too strong of a word here) getting my hands dirty. I don't know why, just something in my genes, I guess. My mom tells me that as a tiny child I would cry until she rinsed them off. Well, I don't cry any more, but I still go out of my way to avoid having dirty hands.

In my pre-glove world, washing the dishes always grossed me out. Especially when I first had to empty the water Jeff left in the sink from the night before. While I can't imagine that anyone likes sticking their hand in the cold, gray, grease-streaked dishwater, I really despised it. And then I would have to wring out the dishcloth; there's just something about a dishcloth that rubs me the wrong way.

I now live in a post-glove world, where little things like dishcloths and dried-on food bits don't slow me down one bit. I have also noticed that I'm considerably faster at doing the dishes in my post-glove world.

I have thought of other uses for my gloves, such as:

• Wiping down the counters
• Cleaning the bathrooms
• Scrubbing the floor around the toilets
  
• Teaching my Young Musicians classes on Saturdays

So bring on the dirt. I'm ready.