Before I write my post about how my father told me to shut the hell up yesterday, let me point out what exactly this blog is.
I teach a plethora of pre-teen girls how to play piano. In short, I am a glorified babysitter. I am, however, lucky enough to like, nay, love, all of my students. Each of them is smart, musical, hilarious, and adorable. I possibly would like them better if they practiced more. Or if they gave me snacks.
A few weeks ago a favorite of mine, let's call her Jenna, age 12, 6th grade, said to me, "I had some serious business going on today."
"Um, what?" I asked, trying to figure out what serious business could possibly pertain to the horrible version of "This Land is Your Land" written on the music in front of her.
"You know...serious business."
"No, Jenna, I really don't."
She waved her hands around, like that was supposed to indicate business. She continued to insist, "You know, SERIOUS BUSINESS. That thing my friends call The Biz." Finally, she pointed to her pants.
Oh, lawd. How much did I not want to discuss puberty with any of these children? Enough to say bluntly, "You must be referring to bleeding out of the vagina."
This blog is not about bleeding out the hoo-ha. And frankly, it's not even about serious business. It's about bidness. It's about how wonderfully screwed up life is. How nasty, how beautiful, how twisted, how complex, how stupid, how brilliant, how absurd, how anything it all is. Because when you come of age in the 21st century - and I don't mean puberty, I mean REAL coming of age, being shoved out of a sheltered environment into a virtual maze where there is no employment for you and you are finally forced to try to find yourself - you need to know that you are not alone in this world. And what I know is this: art connects us. Be it writing, music, theatre, fine art, etc, the function for the artist is to create, to get out of her head for awhile. And the function of her audience is to hear her and know for themselves that something, somewhere, is staid.
Or it's not, I don't know. I just like the word staid.
N.B. "Bidness," for those readers not in the know, is from the African-American Vernacular English, which in itself is serious bidness. I am obviously an expert in it.
