Life is good! I got my ExCet test and said " Oh, Dieu me sauve" before I opened the thing. Turns out, I got the 1 in 4 chance that the test would be THE EXACT SAME FORM I took the last time I almost passed. So this time I KNOW I passed! Still, I took 3 hours to double check everything. That sort of thing is so exhausting, especially in another language. Since I don't have anyone to really have a French conversation with, I switch my inner monologue. When there's no soap in the bathroom I say " zut! il n'y a pas de savon. " "Ou sont mes clés?" By the end of the day my brain is tired and I have to force the French out, like the Vichy regime. I AM THE QUEEN OF USELESS INFORMATION!

Matt's at the library studying so I'm hibernating under about 3 blankets because the roomies won't let me turn on the heat. I'm watching a show ( PBS of course...I only get like 4 channels in here and I don't want to watch golf or the olympics)about prairie dogs. Prairie dogs running, digging, squeeking, all to the music of string quartet standards like Eine Kleine Nacht Musik. Stuff that would make me cringe when I used to play, because I had heard it so much. This show made me think of two things, Prairie Dog Town of course:





3 years ago I went to Lubbock and experienced Prairie Dog Town, population ???. Little more than a dusty flat field with holes...filled with the cutest fatest little creatures ever. Subsequently this was the trip I met Mikeymo for the first time, also the same trip Kathleen barfed on the recliner and we chucked it over the balcony and into Loop 289. Same trip as the buddy holly glasses and the dashboard confessional sing-along dvd and the new coffee table and Gardsky's and listening to Beck's 'Sea Change' on the way home over and over. ( Strange how 'prairie dogs' are filed in my brain right next to 'Lubbock', 'dashboard confessional & beck', and 'recliner'. I can't believe that was 3 years ago.


This show also reminds me of orchestra, and the fact that I used to be able to play the viola. Maybe am still able to play viola. ( I wouldn't know, the thing is collecting dust under my bed with other ancient high school archives). I can close my eyes listening to this music and remember exactly where to lift the blow, where to slur, how to vibrato. Playing an instrument changes your body; I still have calluses on 3 of my left-hand fingers...I can deftly move my wrist in 'bow-hand'. That sort of thing doesn't go away. I should pick it up again. I got lazy with piano and I get tired of having to synchopate a right hand with the left. I don't think I'll ever be better than a car/shower singer, even though I have fun with it. I was really good at viola for awhile, I just got burned out and bored. The last time I tinkered with it was when David took his strings class. I chose it because my mom played it initially, but the instrument and the music it creates started fitting with my personality at the time. Complementary, hollow, and sometimes timid. " How do you know a bunch of violists are at your door? No one knows when to come in."

As you can see, my concert position has gotten slightly more careless:





Well, stay warm!