an elderly woman was talking to her friends at a concert last week. "i started college seventy years ago this summer. everybody i studied with is dead now; it's the strangest thing. and you know, i feel so free now, when i say 'no.' why should i have to do that? i'm perfectly content with not doing anything."
cars light fierce accerlerandi in the alleyway behind my apartment complex, as if the racket of gravel on rubber excuses the speed, the rushroar of engines, can quench the insatiable jocular libido of the young and drunk of greeley, who are otherwise employed by screaming or fighting or breaking breakables. the downstairs, for a second year in two separate cities by simple coincidence, provides a variety of ongoing domestic dramas like radio entertainment. last year i was practicing in the morning before work and the neighbor, whose voice, temper, and personal issues we had become well acquainted with, though we wouldn't recognize him on the street, came to complain about the sounds of a "piano, or whatever." i did not point out to him that the sound of scales on a keyboard at half volume at 9 in the morning is much less invasive and truly more acceptable neighborly behavior than screams and crashings and "fuck you motherfucker"s between midnight and three. the current domestically disputing residents are less regularly racketeering but there are usually several household items amid the constant sparkling of broken glass on the walkway at any given time (the grill, which he should take away with his sorry ass; photograps in frames, because i don't love you anymore; the tv, thrown out of sheer passion.)
i have this illusion that eventually the whole world (or at least the human components) will arrive at the simple consensus to be quiet at night. and that maybe i can live somewhere where i don't regularly hear people screaming.
today has been a fantastic day, which, after a week of nervous insomnia unrelated to the surrounding students, and in the middle of a semester which has been an perpetual ass-handing, i've been really looking forward to. one of my teachers sat down with me after class to say that i have made significant improvements from the fall. i ran a good rehearsal with difficult material learned in a short period of time. i played in a masterclass for our resident pisspants professor who took a moment after to note, "really, that was almost perfect. exactly the way it should be."
