Saturday, May 25
I've been sleeping twelve hours a night, from one to one. I'm not sure at what point this ceases to be recuperation time from the "stress" of college life and the travel here (i'm still residually sore from transporting my luggage the other day, my goodness) and just becomes pure laziness. I'm somewhat amused by it, actually. I suppose it's good to be in any sort of a pattern though. I really haven't been exerting myself in such a way as to need/deserve that much sleep. I'm fighting the allergy battle with the cats, and mostly winning I think, thanks to Zertec and occasional inhaler puff. But that seems to take a lot out of me. So does the sun, when I'm outside for even a little while. At least it's beautiful out.
What have I been doing? Driving some, practicing by taking dad on his errands. A lot of laundry. Playing piano some (Chopin and Martha's jazz arrangements, not much digging through the repertoire yet.) Reading a lot - I finished Cloudsplitter the other night (funny that it took me two days to read the last 250 pages after four months of reading the rest of it), it could easily have gone on for another hundred pages to really wrap things up, I've been thinking about the implications of the book for today's world - after all, it's all about terrorism. I'm over halfway through The Language Instinct, which I had also set down for the bulk of the semester. A lot of it is a rehash of my various linguistics classes, but in a completely different voice, geared to a different audience, which makes it interesting. Watching some (perhaps) of the bewildering assortment of videos that have found their way into this house in my absence - last night it was Keeping the Faith. It was pleasant enough, but for one thing too long, and for another I fail to find Jenna Elfman the least bit interesting or charismatic, so that doesn't work so well. Ben Stiller has never been my favorite either, but he's growing on me a bit. This was a good role for him. He's actually better as a serious romantic character, he's just annoying when he tries to be funny.
I'm being shamefully non-proactive on the friend front. The only interaction so far has been the result of several phone calls from Jesse - he came over the other night along with Jon, Kelly and Michelle Accorso. A funny group, but that's how it goes these days. We sat around in the living room, searching for topics - music, school, um. Jesse's RZA album was on, and I entertained their request by playing some jazzy piano stuff over the top of one track (whose repeated (only?) lyric was "your ____ ain't shit, your ____ ain't shit..."). They looked through my CDs, which tends to make people uncomfortable. UB40. Hugs, and they took off. It was nice to see folks, you know, but I never had a real conversation with Kelly when we were in school together, so it's just sort of an odd game to do so now.
I Am the World Trade Center is/are playing at the Bug Jar tonight, and I'm sort of tempted to go, but not that much, and I probably won't. I am quite excited, though, about this Jazz Festival that we apparently have in Rochester now (look what happens when I leave town for a little while.) I'm impressed - they're getting lots of big names: Sonny Rollins, Aretha, MMW, Dr. John, the Rippingtons, Randy Brecker, and on and on. Best of all is there's a $25 "club pass" that gets you into a considerable number of the shows, including Brad Mehldau, Sun Ra Arkestra, Akira Tana, Dan Hicks, Jon Abercrombie, and somebody called Elephunk, among others. I'm down with that. Hopefully Joel will want to come up when that's going on - which would fit right in with the plan as I see it. If he ever responds to e-mail. Funny thing, I haven't been getting any real e-mail in the last few days, despite pending responses from Joel, Nori, Rebecca, Alyssa, and several others. Oh, look, Alyssa just wrote me back. A car, cool.
I'm listening to Spinner again. They're playing this Luna song a lot. And stuff. I made an orange cake last night, from a recipe in Moosewood. It's good - very moist and flavorful. It collapsed a little bit when I was unmolding it from the tube pan, but I kind of like the shape now, like a ruined citadel, something from an Escher print. Hey, hooray for summer. This isn't too bad!
it could have been real
it could have been off the hook now
What have I been doing? Driving some, practicing by taking dad on his errands. A lot of laundry. Playing piano some (Chopin and Martha's jazz arrangements, not much digging through the repertoire yet.) Reading a lot - I finished Cloudsplitter the other night (funny that it took me two days to read the last 250 pages after four months of reading the rest of it), it could easily have gone on for another hundred pages to really wrap things up, I've been thinking about the implications of the book for today's world - after all, it's all about terrorism. I'm over halfway through The Language Instinct, which I had also set down for the bulk of the semester. A lot of it is a rehash of my various linguistics classes, but in a completely different voice, geared to a different audience, which makes it interesting. Watching some (perhaps) of the bewildering assortment of videos that have found their way into this house in my absence - last night it was Keeping the Faith. It was pleasant enough, but for one thing too long, and for another I fail to find Jenna Elfman the least bit interesting or charismatic, so that doesn't work so well. Ben Stiller has never been my favorite either, but he's growing on me a bit. This was a good role for him. He's actually better as a serious romantic character, he's just annoying when he tries to be funny.
I'm being shamefully non-proactive on the friend front. The only interaction so far has been the result of several phone calls from Jesse - he came over the other night along with Jon, Kelly and Michelle Accorso. A funny group, but that's how it goes these days. We sat around in the living room, searching for topics - music, school, um. Jesse's RZA album was on, and I entertained their request by playing some jazzy piano stuff over the top of one track (whose repeated (only?) lyric was "your ____ ain't shit, your ____ ain't shit..."). They looked through my CDs, which tends to make people uncomfortable. UB40. Hugs, and they took off. It was nice to see folks, you know, but I never had a real conversation with Kelly when we were in school together, so it's just sort of an odd game to do so now.
I Am the World Trade Center is/are playing at the Bug Jar tonight, and I'm sort of tempted to go, but not that much, and I probably won't. I am quite excited, though, about this Jazz Festival that we apparently have in Rochester now (look what happens when I leave town for a little while.) I'm impressed - they're getting lots of big names: Sonny Rollins, Aretha, MMW, Dr. John, the Rippingtons, Randy Brecker, and on and on. Best of all is there's a $25 "club pass" that gets you into a considerable number of the shows, including Brad Mehldau, Sun Ra Arkestra, Akira Tana, Dan Hicks, Jon Abercrombie, and somebody called Elephunk, among others. I'm down with that. Hopefully Joel will want to come up when that's going on - which would fit right in with the plan as I see it. If he ever responds to e-mail. Funny thing, I haven't been getting any real e-mail in the last few days, despite pending responses from Joel, Nori, Rebecca, Alyssa, and several others. Oh, look, Alyssa just wrote me back. A car, cool.
I'm listening to Spinner again. They're playing this Luna song a lot. And stuff. I made an orange cake last night, from a recipe in Moosewood. It's good - very moist and flavorful. It collapsed a little bit when I was unmolding it from the tube pan, but I kind of like the shape now, like a ruined citadel, something from an Escher print. Hey, hooray for summer. This isn't too bad!
it could have been real
it could have been off the hook now
