Nee is dull

Sometimes I think I was born a stick in the mud. John loves to go to different cultural events, especially musical performances, but he doesn't often rope me into going along. Last Saturday night was one of those rare occasions. The Swedish club sponsored a trio to sing and play piano, and Hannah and I went for moral support (and cashiering, it turned out).

The concert was held at the library. I have been using the library for 4 years and never knew that there was a recital hall upstairs. In the upstairs foyer, there was an exhibit of photographs; the theme of the exhibit was transience. I didn't really care for many of the photos. They felt self-consciously pretentious to me, and a bit too random to fit neatly into the theme. But there were some photos I found really touching, especially the ones with a young person and an older relative, the tenderness and love that was apparent in the younger person. There were two other photos I particularly liked, one of a pre-schooler holding her mouth like the child in the (obviously very old) photo she is holding, the other of an old woman holding a photo of herself as a young woman. To me, those spoke of transience, in the person they used to be and the life they were about to leave behind.

Walking around looking at the photos reminded me that I used to enjoy going to museums and plays when I was a student. There's hardly a building on the UT campus that doesn't have some sort of museum or historical display in it, so I had plenty of chances to indulge my interest back then. And the semester John took a drama appreciation class, he was required to attend X number of plays, so I went with him. We saw a lot of wonderful performances that I still remember: Tennessee William's _Camino Royale_, Moliere's _Learned Ladies_, a short play _View From the Rollercoaster_ by ?? (a lovely short play about a gay blind date).

John has dragged Hannah and me along to some musical performances that were just wonderful--an evening of Arab music--and some that were bo-ring, but *drag* always seems to be the operative word. My intransigence has probably rubbed off on Hannah, and that is really not fair to her (1) or to John, who is so eager to experience new things. I don't know why I am so reluctant to leave the house, but that is something I can change.

(1) There are many things that Hannah is not interested in due to overexposure in her childhood: "Not another castle!" "I don't want to go to college when I get big!" "A concert? Bo-ring!"