Seriously, though.

My breath smells like garlic. I have 15 minutes before class, and I don't want to go. But there are 7 people in my class, so my absense might be noticed... particularly as I e-mailed my prof to make sure class was happening today... (Hey, you never know.) But! I don't have much to do tonight, so I can be a human being! Whatever that might entail! The great thing about living off campus is that you are not always at school, like when you are in a dorm. Like... I'm not always a student. Or a music student. I'm a human being. And with that, I'm off to class.

Un bel di vedremo...

I stayed in tonight and rented "M. Butterfly," a film by David Cronenberg... I've found his work interesting since Denis loaned me "Spider," and we saw "A History of Violence." According to the box, I was to expect an opera singer that was also a secret agent. How could this not interest the likes of me?

The reality of the fiction of the movie was much deeper. It looked at the whole Madama Butterfly myth- an asian woman falls for a western man... she dies for her love for him. Jeremy Irons, a diplomat in Beijing, has an affair with a Chinese woman, and believes she is his Butterfly. The truth ends up being much different... it's an amazing movie, and it made me think about how we are all slaves to these kinds of myths...

I am shocked when someone tells me that they just assume I am this heartbreaker... or that I am a vicious diva. I am lucky to have never broken a heart that I know of. In my apartment, I have this wonderful Tosca poster, painted by Oblinski...


As you can see, she has Cavaradossi on strings. In the picture, she looks almost cruel... but she is the heroine of the story, really... and she still kills herself in the end... for love. So who's really on the strings? That's the thing about people... despite our cunning and ambition, so many of us are is essentially at the mercy of our passions. Strong are those people who can choose which passions guide them.

El manana

Esther asked me today what I'm looking for in a relationship, and I actually surprised myself with what I answered... instead of my usual line of qualifications (human rights conscious, musically aware, sense of humour, mensan IQ, liberal) the only thing that came to mind was: I want to be with someone who has reached a certain level of peace with themselves. I think that the other qualities are negotiable... but this is not. I think this is the first time I had ever really thought of that... I feel a change.

Far from the things that you know

It's 2:48am... Did some studying tonight, after a weekend of getting away from Newark, DE. I'm so in the moment, these days. I think it's my way of getting through this insane month- if I think too much about what's ahead, I'll freak out. Just do what you have to do every day, and it'll be all right. It felt so good to get away this weekend. I couldn't even think about music history, try as I did. I was camping and caving, and as far as I was concerned, that voice major college student was miles away. I love what I'm doing, but it's so important to get away from civilization from time to time... just to remind myself that there's a world without people and universities and six coffee shops on one block. I'm firmly convinced that the best artists and musicians are real people who see the world and let themselves experience life. How can you touch the world if you ignore it? Hopefully, I'm learning some kind of wisdom as to what thoughts are worth acting on, and which ones are better left alone. Hopefully I am learning to communicate.