grrr

[sacramentalist]

This isn't the sort of shit I'm talking about, but this pisses me off, too:

My piano teacher (yes, I'm trying to learn the piano) was flipping though my notebook and hit a couple pages of equations my wife sent me to crunch for her. Sometimes I need to write something down, and my music book is right there. Anyway, J always balks and gets math-panic when she sees my cyphering.

"What did you go to school for, anyway?"

Me, pausing "... Electrical Engineering"

Her, pausing "But you don't work as one."

Me, "no"

Her, "But that's unusual that someone so to school for something so specific and doesn't get into it"

Me, "Yeah well, you'll find I'm not a typical engineer. In fact, you probably won't see too many engineers trying to learn the piano at 47."

"FORTY SEVEN??? Wow. You're going to be FIFTY in ... 3 years!"

"Yeah... thanks for pointing that out."

"But OMG, 50! 50 seems so old. I'd think you were in your late 30's, maybe 40. But not as old as 50."

"OK, you're not making me feel better."

"Hahaha!"

"OK, now you're laughing at me"

"No. I'm laughing with you"

"I'm not laughing"

"I can tell, you're laughing on the inside."

"Let's just do this before I say something mean."

"No, you can come at me."

"Let's just do the lesson."



Fuck. I'm pretty sure she's just teasing. But lady's gotta learn to not be a butthead. So, I have three options:

1) bite back -- which would only make her cry

2) make a fuss or fire her

3) trust she's just teasing and not be so defensive


So now I'm just stewing...

Comments

[lapinlunaire]

FWIW, I think the "wow, I would have guessed you were [way younger age]" is a pretty standard comment*... but blatantly saying it seems old sounds rude if you're not close friends joking with each other. O.o

Maybe she's just very awkward at joking...?

[sacramentalist]

Yeah, I think her social skills are lacking. I guess I could pretend maybe she was trying to be kiss up to me and failing horribly.

[lapinlunaire]

The world's worst attempt at flirting? xD

[sabotabby]

Fuck, I hate that. I'm just now at the point of my life where I don't have to struggle all the time just to survive and I want to get back into music and art and writing, but I feel like that window has closed. A comment like that, even in jest, would probably shatter me.

[sacramentalist]

She learned piano to have a singing career. I could ask her why she's teaching 47 year old men instead of something more lucrative that she went to school for.

Art at any age! What's a 20-something know about anything? Ptui! Only gonads and strife.

Maybe when I'm 70 I'll have something creative to say... I gotta get some skills, now!

[lapinlunaire]

What's a 20-something know about anything? Ptui! Only gonads and strife.

can confirm this is accurate and might explain why I'm bad at art

[sacramentalist]

Oh dear. I'm insulting my supportive friends.

I played your Dance Macrabre game, PS. I couldn't figure out how to control it and kept running over myself and the the wall. You need an 8-bit version of the Saint-Saens piece for theme music. I tried composing it in MuseScore, and then got distracted by something shiny.

[lapinlunaire]

:( Please don't feel this way. There are people who did their best work when they were way, way older than any of us here. I think that makes sense except for a) people like Rimbaud who are geniuses early on, or b) people who behave like spoiled brats and learn nothing from life no matter how old they are. Since you're not in category b), I assume more years = more experiences and knowledge that you can turn into creative stuff.

At least, I'm hoping to unleash my full creative potential at the age of 80 and be a very badass octagenarian who is some kind of punk genius #lifegoals

[sabotabby]

I want to believe that but I feel like I'm getting stupider and less creative as I age. Or at least more exhausted so I can't do creative things.