THE DREAMS IN WHICH I'M DYING ARE THE BEST I'VE EVER HAD
Today was great, again. My mom came into town for the afternoon and we had lunch, went bookshopping, and shopped at the Shadyside Variety Store. There should be a witness protection agency, or maybe a wildlife preserve, around places like that. So it has all of these bizarre wind-up toys (including, but not limited to NUNZILLA!) and games, but it also has authentic old-lady style rain caps for keeping your hair dry (and yes, I bought one) and hardware and all other amazing things. I went to Boss to say my goodbyes to most of them, and I felt kind of mixed levels of comfort. In some ways, it's the same as ever, but at times I just felt like a specter floating from room to room. For the sake of fairness, I've been known to feel that way quite a lot in general, but I feel like my connections to that whole group of people are slipping. And I certainly don't think it's my fault.

Later (much) we watched Donnie Darko again. Some of the time travel elements remind me an awful lot of Phillip K. Dick, and I wonder how much of that is studied or intentional. It may be my favorite movie at the moment, actually, as much as I love Wonder Boys, Ghost World, and Some Like It Hot. I think it's important for sadness to be an acceptable emotion, one that everybody needs to feel.

God, I sound so gothtastic. I also think it's important for Jake Gyllenhal to be widely revered as the hottie that he is. Is that better?

SPEED LEAVING WITHOUT WARNING
I found this while I was looking for Mary Hansen's obituary. Kind of weird and sad. I'm off to the library.

INTO THE MILKY NIGHT
I've discovered the joys of bass playing yet again. This isn't too surprising, because I have so much else to work on that playing bass is literally the last thing in the world that I have time for, right behind painting my toenails and making another zine. And sleeping. But nevertheless I got it out last night and tried some new Pixies tabs, some Pavement tabs, and tried to figure out some Miroslav songs. This is really pretty exciting, because I usually don't figure out tabs for myself just by trying to play with the record. I've figured out "Rock This Town" and most of "Summer Time," and now I'm working on "Read Between the Lines" and "70 Hounds." It makes me feel so darn capable.

Aside from that, all I can say about the next two days is that it'll be over soon and I'll be so relieved. I don't think the Interpretive Practices final will be a big deal, and I hope my jury won't be too big a deal, but I felt really unprepared at the rehearsal last night. Everybody else seemed to have their tunes more or less memorized, and I know I should, too. I guess I have the feeling that Dave and all the other jazz profs give me good grades even though I'm not developing as quickly as the other students, because they feel that I'm working so hard in everything else that it's okay that I'm kind of not good at some things. Maybe this is just because it's finals week, but I feel like I have my feet in too many different worlds. Which is a problem as I only have two feet.

SHE WAS VELVETY!
By the usual standards and measures, today and yesterday have sucked a little. My jazz ear training final is over, and while most of it went fine, I totally just couldn't play the ii V I progressions on piano. I was practicing it wrong, and I just plain old couldn't make it work. The rest of the test was fine, and I guess I should be happy about that. Before that, I got into a fight with Ram, and earlier in the day, Jon and I broke off whatever permutation of a relationship we have. It must make me sound like a real wreck, but it isn't that bad. The end of the semester seems so enticing and near.