20 December 2002
trying again

Today from the dryer I dug out enough lint to make a sweater. No wonder it took four hours to dry three pairs of jeans.

The final hurrah for the semester was tonight at TGI Friday's. I gave everyone stupid sex gifts (mostly Letters to Penthouse and such) and had two Ultimate Girly Drinks and got sufficiently trashed. Note to self: it's probably not a good idea to light a kiln while drunk. But I did. And the building still stands, and I still sit here, typing.

I'm pretty sure no one reads this anymore. Which is my own doing, anyway. You know it's been a while when you can't even remember how your subdirectories are set up.

28 December 2002

Every now and then, her hands found a memory.

She would start with the Lizst exercises from her childhood, and if she closed her eyes she could see her six year old hands practicing on the old upright in her parents' living room. She set them against the rhythm of the hollow clacking beneath her feet, feeling the vibration crawl up her legs and into her hands.

Tap tap tap. Against her jeaned thighs, the molded plastic seats, and when she was really brave, against the filthy scratched windows. She looked out into the swiftly passing darkness, tapping out the music that once filled her head like a cloud, reaching down into her, possessing her cells like a disease. Tap tap tap. It was unconscious now, her fingers moved like her heart pumped blood.

She used to be so self conscious when she first came to the city, analyzing every move and gesture to make sure she fit in. Don't sit too close to anyone. Watch your purse. Avert your eyes. She felt the stares, but now they held no weight and no judgement. She was watching them like a tv show, from a long distance away. She knew the ending and where she would be when the credits finally rolled.

From end to end, each line. Rachmaninoff all the way to Canarsie. Mozart up to Van Corlandt Park. Beethoven as she looked down on Queens passing beneath her. Over and over again, every day. It was all she could do, because it was all that mattered.

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