So a couple days ago, I played at Stony Brook after work for First Thursdays. I was going to go down to Centre Street and play outside there, but then the heavens opened, so that plan was negated.

I was talking to the woman who'd asked me to play in the first place, and she started telling me about this blog she'd found by a Boston violinist and how the blogger was talking about not touching the fiddler, and I said, "Uh...is that the Accidental Fiddler?"

"Yes!"

"Um...that's me."


The whole evening was a little surreal, especially when I found someone I knew from a previous lifetime working at Emack and Bolio's.

Also during that evening, someone asked if I could play and dance at the same time, like Natalie MacMaster. I can barely walk and breathe at the same time, so I laughed and said, "Not quite." He said that by the time I'm her age, I'll be able to.

I checked, and she's younger than I am. So much for that theory.

*~*~*~*~*

I was playing on City Hall Plaza on Thursday, and I had to quit early, not because of the weather or anything, but because Dashboard Confessional was doing their sound check.

*~*~*~*~*

A man started talking to me while I was packing up, and something about him just presented as a little off. He turned out to have some trouble understanding appropriate inhibitions in interacting with strangers. He asked if guys hit on me all the time, and I told him not really, and anyway, I was taken. He said he'd ask me out in a heartbeat; I thanked him, but I'm taken. He said he thought girls with stringed instruments were automatically erotic, and I could play scantily-clad for my boyfriend, and were my measurements 36-24-36?

Then the train came. I'm often happy to see the Orange Line, but I was even happier to see it at that moment.

*~*~*~*~*

I was playing "Red River Valley", and an older woman came up and started singing along with tears in her eyes. People have told me I made them cry before (usually with "Danny Boy"), but this is the first time I've actually seen it happen. I've been so involved in music for so long that sometimes I lose sight of how it affects people.

*~*~*~*~*

A man hopped off a Green Line train and took my picture. He had a digital camera, and he showed me the result, and it just proved that my concentrating face looks like my mad face. That's why I try to remember to smile while I'm playing; I don't want to appear unapproachable.

Except maybe to guys who think all chicks with stringed instruments are erotic, because that's just a little creepy.