Every day I get so mad that journaling, yoga, and harmonic analysis actually work

i am not on here for “influence,” I am on here to make my friends that live in my phone go “hehe” when they read the dumb little thoughts that i needed to write out and put somewhere

Hello I wrote about what art has taught me about what the actual point of money is buttondown.com/doodlyroses/...

Clicked on a tweet a friend sent me which forced the X app open and WHAT is happening here

Newsletter is happening, it's just taking a while because once again I am overthinking everything

Cat influencers on the internet: your cat desires raw meat, if you don’t give them the wild hunter’s protein they crave your little predator will suffer My cat: if you don’t replace my fish dinner with yummy crunchy kibble right now I am going to die and you will be sorry you denied me happiness

Been working over an hour trying to figure out where and why I end up shifted a half beat over in a passage with syncopated rhythms off tied notes, this is exactly like debugging code only without the engineer’s salary

Help it turns out that learning even a bit of riding is enough to break your immersion reading historical fiction when the author doesn’t seem to know anything about riding

I keep having this experience where I make myself read intimidating classic novels thinking they'll be a slog and am then blown away by how easy the writing is to read and how funny and relatable people have been in every era—the screenshotted Bad Take is so ignorant it's breathtaking

Dear people who live in rainy places, what brands make raincoats that are actually waterproof Sincerely, An Angeleno whose $30 clearance rain jacket just got completely soaked through after 10 minutes of walking in the rain

Me at age 3: I just want to play the piano!!! Me in my 30s: I just want to cuddle cats and read books

Book 7 begins with an introduction to the nuns who run the hospital, who happen to have perfect girl cat names, and I think Hugo’s way of writing about them is pretty hilarious lesmis.doodlyroses.com/2026/02/13/5...

I do have to hand it to the New York Times for accurately nailing the vibe of Culver City

We’re on Book 6 now and there’s a lot going on. Fantine is dying in the hospital! Madeleine is doing the equivalent of paying off strangers’ GoFundMes! The Thénardiers keep on scamming! lesmis.doodlyroses.com/2026/02/10/5...

Charles Darwin sounds exactly like me in group chats wow

I cannot overstate how much of a scream this article is missionlocal.org/2026/02/sf-m...

You know, I’ve had my own fair share of “hmmm” moneyed connections as an unknown classical pianist trying to make it but at least I never personally sourced young women for J*ffrey Epst*in in return for personal career mentorship, so www.criticaldrift.org/p/simon-ghra...

Sometimes I come here to post a jokey complaint about practicing and then hit delete because inevitably some well-intentioned amateur musician will see my post and offer me basic advice and I just don’t want to have to deal with that

If you are a fast reader I recommend never letting anyone know you are a fast reader otherwise people will constantly send you books and longform articles assuming you can read and discuss them immediately

A very, very good piece, written by one of the best

Was at a jazz gig and the pianist’s iPad the entire time was open to iMessages where the setlist had clearly been texted to him

Can barely wrap my mind around how insulting it is that Spotify made a "mental health hotline" for its artists to use instead of, idk, paying and supporting us and respecting us as people 🤷‍♀️

imho the “art made by bad person = bad art” attitude is just a repackaged version of the “beauty is a manifestation of moral goodness” fallacy

First newsletter of 2026 is out—I somehow started with horses and ended on why Schubert used a six flat key signature in my favorite impromptu. Don't ask me how I got from point A to point B, it just happened like that buttondown.com/doodlyroses/...

“It must be nice to be a man and make boring music just because you can” music.apple.com/us/album/one...

I only just remembered that it’s only been a year since the fires in LA, and I’m weirdly glad I recorded so many of my feelings about it in the moment because I reread this and realized so much of this, vivid as it was at the time, has since been repressed in my mind buttondown.com/doodlyroses/...

Got a phishing email from a Van Cliburn finalist, that’s a new one

Not to be weird about chords on main but I love how some chord changes have the energy of letting a strap slip over a shoulder and others feel like a dress hitting the floor. It’s like whew, Schubert, you want me to do this in front of people?? ok you freak I’ll do it

Can someone just tell me if Upscroll will fill the hole in my heart that is addicted to living my life out loud on Instagram Stories but stopped last year because Meta sucks

Saw this on Instagram: Modern Times Cafe in Minneapolis is going to be free and volunteer-staffed for the duration of the occupation of the city, is accepting donations to cover costs via @moderntimescafe on Venmo

I knew I would get something out of reading Les Misérables, but I was not prepared for how helpful and soothing it would be for understanding and processing the current moment

They should make mini packets of instant noodles for when you just want a lil snack

Every time I use maple syrup as sweetener in a hot beverage I feel like I’m being possessed by the spirit of @violanorth.bsky.social

I didn’t think I’ve gotten better at writing but I’m reading over the edited draft of something I wrote a few years ago that’s finally being published and I am horrified at how juvenile my writing is

We begin Book 5 with the Valjean and Fantine timelines finally converging, and I realize there are geographic reasons for why Fantine doesn’t check on Cosette lesmis.doodlyroses.com/2026/01/20/4...

I started Book 4 with the kind of investigative zeal that people usually apply to solving murders in order to figure out how Hugo’s timeline tracks lesmis.doodlyroses.com/2026/01/17/3...

I know this is not the point of playing the piano but every time I see performance video of myself I’m just so pleased at my ability to manage nuances on three pedals in stiletto heels, just a classic example of how I insist on playing everything in hard mode just to prove that I can

all of Classical Music Bluesky yesterday and today:

Will 2026 finally be the year I understand that laundry is a thing that needs to happen every week and not something you do once and are done with for the rest of your life

Rule #1 of Classical Twitter/Bluesky: *everything* happens to the duck

Let me get this straight, I don’t check social media for one day and I come back to find that @musicologyduck.bsky.social is the main character of Bluesky in the most Duck way imaginable??

Ok so the Busoni piano concerto is indeed the most piano concerto I have ever experienced in a piano concerto

TIL that some of the Los Angeles Olympics events are going to be happening in…Oklahoma

What are you planning to do to me, LA Phil

We’re onto Book 3 now! In Chapter 1, Hugo’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire, 1817 Edition” proves that everything has always happened so much lesmis.doodlyroses.com/2026/01/08/2...

Víctor Hugo 1000%

Exciting news in Florence Price Land: Samantha Ege’s edition of Price’s 4 Fantasies is now available for pre-order, thus saving all future pianists from the nightmare hell that I went through global.oup.com/academic/pro...

Rough vibes on this website today, likely because people feel Hopeless and Helpless Because Can't Stop It and No One Who Is Supposed To Is Trying To So Now We're Fighting Each Other™. I recommend activities such as book, or potentially instrument if you like instrument, or even do talk on phone.

I regret to inform you that AI has hit the specialty red envelope design industry

Went to turn some leftover hot pot into tom yum soup tonight but didn’t have enough tom yum paste so I added Japanese chili-garlic oil, Korean gochujang, Chinese black vinegar, Vietnamese fish sauce, and an entire lime to make the most pan-Asian sweet and sour soup that has ever existed