Another Day, Another Lyric

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I wonder, what is the exchange rate is between pounds and absolute shameless face-burning self-embarrassment these days? Because sometimes I feel like I'm losing a lot more than the £2.50 I gain for the Tanzania Summer Project whenever I burst into the dining hall with my red accordion to deliver someone a serenade. The ones I write myself are getting a lot more popular now, after the illustrious world premiere of 'The Communist Lullaby' in Kate Vincze's D-code European History class yesterday at 8:15 in the morning:
Mao puts me to sleep at night
Come on, Trotsky, hold me tight
Stroking Marx's beard my fantasy
Sometimes I lie awake and sigh
And sing this Communist lullaby
And wish I took European History
The proletariat trumps the bourgeoisie
...that was just the chorus. Kate wanted the lyrics afterwards as she really liked them; at coffee break an hour later, the guy who anonymously paid for the serenade - and I won't even mention his name here, accordion-player/client confidentiality and all that - told me that she was having a really dismal morning, and after that song she was so happy she started crying. So not only am I actually making money for starving orphans in Africa, but I'm making someone's day? This is far too Hallmark Movie Channel, all I need now is a mysterious stranger entering my life who (as I find out when the accordion music swells in the last ten minutes) is actually my guardian angel! Of course the whole Kate story could just be another casualty of the constantly churning AC Rumour Mill, whose water wheel I could singlehandedly push with the valuable knowledge of who's buying who an anonymous serenade at lunchtime; for once I'm actually looking forward to Valentine's Day, which promises to be especially rife with juicy musical confessions. My accordion has been surgically attached to my back for the past week or so: through the rain to the music department where I'm teaching lessons, through the fog at twilight while sprinting to the dining hall to play and sing Take A Chance On Me, and even through our snowstorm, which not even a Vermonter could belittle as the entire school started throwing snowballs at each other and at the teachers who futilely tried to make us all get back inside after check-in. There were still some curiously spherical bruises showing up at prom that weekend, though I believe that mine - on the shoulder, from a well-aimed snow-bullet from Jahn - was definitively overshadowed by my fantastic shoes. As the melody of Besame Mucho soared to the top of the Bradenstoke Hall, just me with the accompaniment of Jose on the piano and a hundred-part chorus of people screaming my name, I realised I didn't even need the vertiginous confidence boost already afforded me by the black tasseled stilettos. I tried to record the performance, but half of it was sort of drowned out by the bellowing "EMMA SINNG TO MEEEEEE I LOOOOOVE YOUUUUUU" of an unidentified male sitting too close to the microphone on my laptop, who apparently was an even bigger fan of the wine from dinner. Serenade business really picked up after that. I sell them everywhere: during my politics oral assessment, discussing my coursework on why the Second Vermont Republic represents the perfect utopian socialist state, my teacher cut me off as I was dithering about Tolstoy's anarchist communes and asked if I'd surprise his wife with Someone To Watch Over Me during one of her history classes. I have to think of at least four words which rhyme with 'Gabor' (aha! 'four'! it's a start) as his Higher Physics A-Code is all contributing 20p for me to write him a song. Chile Project halfheartedly sells charred cupcakes at coffee break, Malaysia Project sorts through people's dirty laundry for £3 a load, and the guy who's taking me out to dinner tonight is getting his legs waxed at 10 for £1 per strip, for Vietnam. Meanwhile, the back of my planner continues to fill with bookings; it's a total profit all round.

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