go check out http://danielwakefieldpasley.net/
or maybe i'm just a sucker for bikes and the california landscape.

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."

apparently my dream job has always been to be an opera musical director.

CHAPTER ONE

really the more i learn about The World the more i believe that a lot of Our Problems can be solved by

1. riding more bikes
2. eating less meat

whap-bam-sha-boom mother-fucker! too bad we're all lazy.



CHAPTER TWO

i'm usually very good with internalizing music and creating some sort of personal imagery with which to work through a piece. this is the first piece which so far has eluded me almost entirely. it takes a certain broad calmness - indulgent zen - to play brahms well and i'm too nervous, too figety. "we need to make emily quiet," my teacher said, "physically, that is."





CHAPTER THREE

i've had a hard time adjusting to school again after the break. we drank wine every night and played showtunes and in the morning we'd swim in the ocean. sometimes all i want is to go home and have a baby or two in a little house (with a composting toilet) by the sea and cook meals that the family all eats together.

Chthonic
( /ˈkθɒnɪk/, from Greek χθόνιος – chthonios, "in, under, or beneath the earth", from χθών – chthōn "earth"; [1] pertaining to the Earth; earthy; subterranean) designates, or pertains to, deities or spirits of the underworld, especially in relation to Greek religion. The Greek word khthon is one of several for "earth"; it typically refers to the interior of the soil, rather than the living surface of the land (as Gaia or Ge does) or the land as territory (as khora (χώρα) does). It evokes at once abundance and the grave.


one of the chthonic dieties is gaia.




there is also a band from taiwan.

look at these! look at these! look!

more on the front page of burn. by Tomasz Lazar.

i've just discovered the subtle wear-zone on my jeans that foreshadows their eventual downfall. it's like realizing the person you love is going to break up with you. it's just a matter of time.

from "stamen," by dustin arnold and nicholas cope

my first reaction was man, these are vulgar. upon closer examination, though, the vulgarity disappears. oh well. more here.






also, i'm going to do a half marathon.

i have lost sixty pounds. i now weigh as much as i did as a freshman in high school, when i was on the wrestling team. i stopped trying to lose weight about ten pounds ago but the rest has happened as a result of being addicted to exercise. so hey, i'm not complaining.

i gained those sixty pounds because when i was in high school, they tried to medicate the teenager out of me. then i went to college and made poor health choices for a couple of years.

here are some conceptions of sixty pounds:

the average weight of a border collie.



the weight of this hamburger.



this much pot.



a child big enough to not have to use a car seat in the state of california.