Hey! You don’t know this about me—why would you? I’m a stranger—but growing up I listened to a massive amount of opera and symphony orchestras. My grandfather always played and sang opera for me and after he died there was a local access channel manned by a nearby art college. They would blast opera recordings in the mornings; any recordings they could find of symphonies, presumably public domain music set to their art installations.

It was short lived and I’m sure no one but the students who made it remember it—except me. I saw it. I watched it. I have always had a delightful amount of insomnia and I would just crawl downstairs before school and sit on the edge of our weirdly positioned couch and watch operas and ballets.

I have extremely strong opinions on ballet and opera–which I share with practically no one. No one cares. That’s cool. It’s not what my peers could relate to. I grew up being told that it was pretentious or stuffy or disengaged; I don’t play any instruments that really lend themself well so I didn’t really have anyone to talk to about that branch of music. It’s not something I learned to advertise.

In the past year, as life has taken on different courses for me, I have swung back into listening to symphony orchestras and also just a lot more music in general. I love music and times that are the worst in my life are usually ones where I look back and realize that I somehow got disconnected from music.

I both know that music alleviates a lot of negativity in my life and I somehow lose that thread. I will just stop listening to music altogether if I’m stressed out enough.

So I’ve made a decision, something…fun…I’m going to document.

I’ve been fairly isolated between moving several times, changing careers, and the covid that everyone is still dealing with regardless of how seriously they take it or not. I am kind of starting at the bottom, and that means….well. I guess for a normal person it would mean finding new friends or something. For me, a crazy person, it means I’ve decided I need a faux fur coat.

Why keep pretending anymore? I’m going to steal this man’s identity. He can’t stop me, he’s dead.