i have never been this continuously happy ever, a bone-deep "i got this" feeling, for quite a while now, i am happy, i am so happy and i am happy to be growing up and happy with who i am, the things i'm doing, the places i'm going, everything everything my heart is wonderfully full and quiet.

i've dived into an unnecessary and senselessly huge project -- trying to determine if the verb "do" can be considered a class indicator in shakespeare's comedies. probably not, but the project is wonderfully consuming: "do" has a tremendously interesting and often overlooked role in the history of english. one particular historian (john mcwhorter, whose emphasis is in pidgin and creole languages) contends that the only other languages in the world that have such a verb are welsh and cornish. routine usage doesn't rear its ugly head until early modern. you can fill in the rest.

trying to explain this to my roommates/girlfriend:

"as in, i want to do your mom? past tense: i did your mom."
"i will have done your mom."
"or! your mom is as wet as the morning dew."
"ooh -- your mom has more numbers than the dewey decimal system."

good.

another hungover saturday morning, instant coffee, students. i'm getting good at this. i do not have a problem. i do not have a problem.

last night was: recital. red stockings black pumps my legs are dynamite and thank-god-it's-over, now-i-can-stop-shaking. this was followed by competitive four-hand sight-reading as a drinking game. if you and your partner didnt make it to the end, she'd be ready, vodka in two tall glasses, one for each pair of hands:

"it zounds like zhots!" and then throw her head back with manic laughter.

the pieces included, notably, mozart symphonies, "a liszt christmas," and the batman theme ("batmun teem." "bach motif?" "no! batmun teem.").

classical piano is a long and hellish party where they make you play until you can't walk in a straight line, where you argue loudly about the dead, give and receive roses, chocolates, grievances, gossips, and stories about a childhood under the communist regime.

i dont know how many of my students are going to stick to the game of it, but man, they're in for a ride if they do. i have one student in particular who i think might survive -- girlie, you just wait.

every time i turn pages for somebody in a concert, i have an odd sort of revelation. it probably doesn’t help that it is a uniquely stressful situation – though never too bad, for one is always “the page turner”, never “emily” – the lights from the catwalk from my perspective back-light the performers, and make the black keys tilt like staggering drunks, so it seems like i’m turning pages on the set of some horrible film-noir. (what will happen when the piano stops, when i grab two pages instead of one, or forget the repeat?) when the clarinet player arduously drips the chain and cloth down the clarinet and wipes it clean every time, drips the chain and cloth, fusses with his mouthpiece every time, it takes too long between pieces and even though there is nothing going on this room full of community, full of strangers, we all are observing that odd tradition of breathless silence, the chain and cloth hissing through the clarinet, he smiles back-lit sheepishly. it is the sort of tensely bored forty-five seconds onstage between pieces where the only thing to think about is the precise angle of curl of one’s fingers, hidden in one’s own lap, and the potential offensives therein.

last night i saw the pianist depress the keys and the hammers rise, which is in itself not such a novel observation, but it was is a slight jiggle to the hammers after striking the strings, and i realized suddenly that the mechanism of the piano is in fact separate from the mechanism of the hands. this should be obvious. maybe just for me, having spent the last five years meditating on the supposed direct line between fingertip and sound, that rebellious post-strike hammer undulation appeared as the most seductive, mesmerizing mechanical give in the world, like the swinging ponytail of a runner passing you in the early morning, or the way somebody’s arm twitches against you as they fall asleep.

this is how i tell it is time to drop the class.

i got the music and the go-ahead for this today. god is good.

while it may be technically impossible, it is theoretically entirely possible to have an infinitely long sentence that is completely grammatical.

i'm seeing someone who is very high energy and kind, i'm hooking up with all kinds of exciting tesol/tefl people and resources, i'm daydreaming about veitnam and nepal and chile and india and peru, i'm glad and excited to be living my life.

“most of the important changes in american speech are not happening at the level of grammar or language—which used to be the case—but at the level of sound itself.” - william labov

what if all british nannies were actually old david attenboroughs who whisper-narrated at their charges in the third person, instead of speaking to them like the good ol' homegrown american nannies we all know?

this nursery may seem calm, but there is life here. here we can see a three month old child in its natural habitat. though other mammals by this stage have already learned to hunt and fend for themselves in the wild, this one still has motor skills that are primitive at best, and remains totally dependent on its caretaker. watch now as the caretaker moves in to change its diaper.

long bike ride saturday.

i suspect that part of the reason i am reluctant to make the recording for graduate school applications is that i am also reluctant to grow up and acknowledge my impending adulthood.

i think i will always associate the smell of instant coffee with saturday mornings. and hangovers. except -- this time -- i'm not hungover. just stayed up all night reading the riddlemaster trilogy. go team. i'm glad my students dont know anything about me. respect levels would probably plummet.

on thursday, my cousin got hit by cars and on friday, passed away; we're not totally sure how he managed to be hit by multiple cars, but at this point it doesn't really matter. family is family. i'll be driving down tomorrow. it'll be good to be home.

and i'm gonna get my hurr cut off.