Marching Band: day 1

yesterday, Thursday, August 13th, was the first day of marching band for the Bainbridge Island High School. well, it was actually the training for the incoming freshman. the section leaders were there too, helping us train. Mr. Waterkotte is coaching the marching band, and he is strict. he's wearing us down into a pulp. my whole body is aching especially my neck, shoulders, upper arms, thighs, lower back, and yes, my abs. well i dont really have abs, but where my abs would be if i had any, it hurts pretty bad. he had us do pushups, all sorts of stretches (which werent that bad because i have 8 years of ballet backing me up. im flexible), and then he had us lay down on our backs, and lift our feet up an inch of the ground-it was torture. this excersise isnt new to me, but its not like i do it every day. after about thirty straight seconds of lifting one inch, he had us lift three feet, and thirty seconds later we'd go back to one inch, and repeat the process. it worked our leg muscles and our tummy muscles. then we spent two-and-a-half hours learning a series of commands: "Band, parade rest!" was the first one we learned. "Band, atten-hut!" was the second. then we got our instruments out and learned 'instruments up'. i tell you, whipping a trombone from straight up and down in front of you, to at your mouth and ready to play in a fraction of a second, is not the easiest task. we're talking about a pretty big instrument here. its tall, so it wobbles a lot, making it rather difficult to hold it still when going from unstruments up to attention position. we then learned how to march. this was somewhat difficult. "keep your legs straight! bend your knees a little more! i said keep your legs straight! not that straight! feet forward not out! dont smile! how dare you smile!" it was pissing everyone off, but it was funny. well sort of. in attention position, waterkotte told us this: "you know how a rattle snake waits? tail rattling, coiled up, ready to strike. are you ready to strike?! you are a rattle snake. in this position people should fear you. people should say 'oh my God they're scary!' and run away in fear. you are going to be the scariest marching band ever. do not smile. keep your eyes intent and focused-right over the head of the person in front of you. your eyes should be burning holes in the back of their head-they should feel it!" i thought he worded all of this very nicely. today we are learning several more commands, and we're going to learn how to march backwards. i dont know how we're gonna do it-it was hard enough trying to walk forwards and hit the mark each time! eight steps, twenty two inches appart, one 15-yard line to the next. i did it perfect at first but then i kept getting worse and overshooting it. oh well. i just hope we can make through today without keeling over dead.

Hands

hands are magnificent. they the most amazing things (next the brain, the heart, the lungs, and all those vital organs that are important for survival). without hands, we wouldnt be able to draw, paint, write, make food, play musical instruments, erect buildings, and sex would be awfully difficult. we would have to do everything with our feet (ew) and sure, that would make our feet super strong and muscular just like hands, but thats not the point im trying to make. hands are beautiful. not all hands, though. sure nail polish and french manicures make your hands pretty to look at, but they dont make your hands truly beautiful. but thats just what i think. in my opinion, the most beautiful hands are the ones people actually USE. hands that frequently get dolled up and dressed up and made up and prettied up and whatever-uped, arent living up to their full potential as hands (or even a fraction of their potential). they are sissy hands. beautiful hands, however, belong to potters. potters have the most beautiful hands ever. calliced, cracked, and cut. and covered in clay. oh would you look at that i made an alliteration! anywho. thats just one example though. construction workers also have beautiful hands. i recently had the wonderful privilage of helping rebuild our church. i didnt actually get to do any work because im under sixteen. and you have to have a ligitimate parent watching over you every second if you want to even consider doing any of the dirty work. so i worked in the kitchen with all the women and my friend nick. he made working in the kitchen so much fun. i dont know what i (or anyone else) would have done if he hadnt been there to make us laugh (even if he is annoying, its the good kind of annoying-the kind you miss once the work is done and you no longer have to go back and help out). but im getting off topic again. anyways. so i when i was walking around dilivering water bottles to the workers (because if we didnt go around doing it they wouldnt come to us and get their own and theyd die of dehydration) i got the chance too look at all of their hands. most of them had thick gloves on, but those who didnt had beautiful, rough, calliced hands. another example of hands living up to their full potential. COOKS. more glorious hands. esbestos fingers. hah. i remember ark, the guy who was managing the kitchen and the working too sometimes. he was a big guy, thin spiky hair, grey curly chest hair, extremely tall, close to being fifty id say, but he had the spirit and energy of a thirty-year-old. sometimes he even looked like he was thirty. and he had esbetos fingers. we would be standing along the sides of the food display (two to a food, one on each side of the display for quick dishing up-we were the servers), which was constantly being pumped through with hot water so it was perfect hand-warmiing temperature in the cold foggy morning, scorching in the hot afternoon, and melt-your-face-off hot at dinner time. about half of the deep pans of food would already be placed in their burning metal display by the time we all got there, and then the cooks-and mark-would bring the pans out frantically wanting to get rid of them, ordering us all to step back, and place the pans in their slots-with their bare hands! when we asked mark how he did it, he said "Esbestos fingers. Thats what you get after thirty-five years of cooking."
musicians also have beautiful hands. calliced fingertips from playing the guitar, and muscular fingertips from brass instruments. musicians who use their mouths to play instruments develop muscles in their lips and cheeks, rather than their hands, though. therefore, musicians (save guitarists and celloists and violinists and other stringed instrument-ists) are my exception. it may not be fair, but if they are saving their hands to be glorious, magnificent vessels of music-generating power, then thats okay. and WRITERS. they have beautiful callices on their middle fungers. as well as artists. painters. my lord, painters are wonderful. hands always covered in paint. and no matter how hard they scrub, there will always be that tiny but of paint that gets embedded into their cuticles, or that is perminantly inside of cuts or other various wounds that painters might get. they could stab themselves with the pencil on accident and get some led residue stuck inside their skin. i did that once in sixth grade in art class but the tip broke off inside my paml because it was newly sharpened, and they just thought it was residue at first but after feeling the wound and noticing the missing tip of the pencuil they were sure there was a chunk of lead stuck in there. i can run my finger over it now and feel inside. theres a tiny dark spot you notice under the skin if you look closely at it. anyway. my word i have terrible ADHD. i actually do. well i used to anyways. i still think i do though. thats why i never finish any of my stories that im writing, or any of my projects that i spontaniously decide to make. IN ANY CASE.
you can tell a lot about a person from their hands. every nick, every cut, every swollen lump tells a story. beautiful hands make beautiful people. not movie star glamorous people. but actual beautiful people-whether it be on the outside, or inner beauty. if you are beautiful on the inside, chances are, no matter what you look like, who you are is what makes you beautiful. the stories your hands tell about you. and those with stories to tell, are the most beautiful hands-and people-of all.