September 7, 2004 at 2:56 PM

I spent all night agonizingly intense and contemplating quitting school and my assistantship and just taking lessons and playing my recital and taking my comprehensive exams and getting out of my school. There are so many issues...I won't go into them. Then I finally (after walking around my apartment complex, swinging on the swings in the playground at 2 am, having a long conversation with the gas station attendant at around 3...)fell asleep to wake up every half an hour or so drenched in sweat. Then I woke up this morning and feel fine. I can't remember what the angst and hurt and weirdness of last night felt like. Ah...how mornings bring perspective with space between the day before and what is to come. I'm sure I'll get all worked up today about something and have to calm down all over again. Sometimes I feel like I'm a car. A racecar. Black. Shiny. Going 180mph shifting gears and revving the engine. Then I either get a ticket or run out of gas and get stranded or pull over on the side of the freeway for a nap....stop at IHOP....if only I were more like my real car. A 93 hyundai that maxes out at 65 mph, chortles and coughs, blends into traffic, has a nonworking music player, and is small...
I love my car, though. I have an IPOD that I take with me...put on huge recording headphones and random play music when I drive. Sometimes I'm driving a spaceship, sometimes a submarine, sometimes I forget I'm driving....the greatest music comes on. Wagner, then the Louvin Brothers...then Dar Williams, then Bartok, then gregorian chant, then REM, then 60's girl pop, then indonesian music, then Smith's anthology tracks, then Vivaldi...makes the commute fun. Maybe that is why mornings are great. I look forward to the 45 minute commute of music and drinking coffee (as long as I don't spill it in my lap) and smoking cigarettes in the cool morning air. The day has not yet hit. You know, and it doesn't have to. I think I just allow things to get under my skin. So today is going to be pleasant and I'm going to let all the things that are bothering me there just slide off my skin when they happen. FORGET HOW TO THINK. That is the main problem. The music building has been my home for five years. My haven. My place. I am not going to let anyone or anything take that comfort and happiness and sweat away from me.
JW

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September 7, 2004 at 2:56 PM

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