This year is going to suck all the life out of me, reducing me to little but an empty shell of a human, malnourished, sleep-deprived, sun-deprived, society-deprived--I will be an infinitely more musical shell, I will--as aforesaid life is slowly drained out of my once vibrant being, or maybe hosed into nothingness, as in a vacuum--become a treasure trove of musical insight, defy gravity, conquer time, transcend the trivia of past lives and embrace mystic inevitability.

If only I knew what the hell I'm doing.  That would be a good starting point.

In Baltimore or less.  Landed at 7:30ish Saturday night, found Robert waiting at my doorstep like the wonderful person he is.  Went to Subway with Rob and Thomas and won a free Scrabble cookie.  Gave said cookie to Thomas because he complained that he didn't win anything.  Ismar met us at Subway, Thomas left to hang out with the roommates, the three former members of Triyoga retired next door to Never's so Ismar could sate his appetite for grease.  Slant for Rob's cigs, Ismar's new place.  Is nice.  Took some apple juice and squeezed a lemon into it.  Surprisingly not gross.  Listened to calm Latin music.  Shot the breeze with the two other trio legs.  Lemon is a powerful laxative, I learned.  Back to my place, outside of which we ran into Brian, who came and chilled for awhile although he didn't seem like he particularly wanted to be there.  Unpacked.  Thomas came over.  Slept in my approximately two bajillion degree room.

First full day back was nothing short of magical.  Everything fell into place perfectly, Rolex couldn't have timed it better.  Morning, farmer's market with Brian, laundry, made and packed my lunch, shower, practice for an hour or so, lunch break in the plaza (garlic and herb white cheddar, grilled eggplant and green peppers on toasted French rosemary bread and a Paulared apple) where I ran into Tim, Mark, Solen and Alex.  Solen and I made plans to lay out at her pool later.  Practiced a few more hours.  Upon returning my key, I alit to the plaza only to run into practically everyone I wanted to see - Frank, Griffin, Bijan, Aleksi, bing bang boom hugs all around and brief briefings on summers and Will and I went to the Asian market where I bought rice and noodles and other Asian things that I need in order to sustain my yellowness and I went to the pool with Solen and John came for a second too and as I was walking back to my apartment I ran into Kim and Christian and we made plans to go to yoga so now I really had run into basically everyone I wanted to run into and I went home and made chow mein with eggplant, peppers and cucumber (it was an eggplant/pepper day) and Thomas came over and we ate and I went to yoga and smoked hookah at T's place with him and the roommates, the three of whose dynamic I've missed so so so much and T and I went to bed in his approximately negative two degree room.

Now breakfasting on blueberry green tea, peaches and toast.  Getting the hell off this soon because practice is of the essence, and I need to get at least a couple hours in before Trader Joe's.

I'm starting to reach the surface.  It's no longer dark and despairing -- I can see glimmers of the sun above me -- but it's still cold and wet and I'm still a long treacherous lung-busting swim away from air, that most taken for granted of necessities, that pesky sustainer of life.

Ever have one of those days where you look around and just have all of a sudden an incredibly intense appreciation for everything, for where you are, where you've been, where you'll be?  Where everything is so vivid you can practically taste your surroundings?  Where you're sitting in your room, willingly, joyously struggling through the infinite tome that is Infinite Jest, not sure if you've even understood the last ten pages but not even caring, just going along for the ride, that's how good it is?  Pausing for a second to Google Image-search The Ecstasy of St. Theresa, and stare at it, wondering when you'll get to see it for real?  Plopping backward onto your pillows and admiring the Savannah Mist mint-green of the walls melting into the window, blending with the too-green of freshly-rained-on trees?  When everything is calm, and you think about all the other places you've been and were calm, yoga in Fells Point in Utkatasana staring out the sweat-clouded windows at the bright C of the moon and the water lapping gently and the cobblestones, morning in your boy's backyard, watching the AM LA fog roll around in the abyss betraying only one or two distant black hills, 7AM in Zhangjiajie National Park in China, getting ready to trek through impossibly beautiful terrain, that time of morning when the sun's just pardoning his way through mountainous piebald crags, when the dew still smells sweet and the air is new and refreshing and the impending promise of an infernal midday temperature has yet to be fulfilled?  When you have miriad questions, some pretty important, like what-the-hell-are-you/have you been-doing/going to do/-with-your-life but you push them aside because you're only 20 yet and everything is unfolding before you and you think about taking up art again, you used to be a pretty good artist albeit self-taught, you still have the fancy-grade soft pencils and charcoals and Mi-Teintes pastel paper and everything, and you regret eBaying away your Canon SLR even though you never used it but you want to now, and your boy's been bugging you to write another article so you should probably do that, and practice, and play tennis because you've gotten really bad at tennis?

Ever have one of those days?

Been doing lots of gallivanting around foggy LA.  Am impressed at and fond of how easy it is to be vegetarian - and even vegan - here.  Trouble shitting for some reason (even after my uppage of fiber content), but this morning eased that a bit.  Thomas was getting tired of my bitching about my constipated ass.  Hanging with the family.  Playing with my boy.

Gotta go.  Auntie I's making eggs.

Love you all.

I like listening to Bruckner 4 naked.

Toasting in the Carolina sun.

Wake up.  Vinyasa against the waves.  Long walk along the shore.  Listen to the waves harmonizing with the sounds pulsating in my headphones.

Reading Fitzgerald and eating peach yogurt on the deck.

Shopping with Mom in a cute little fishing village a few miles away.  Mmm, saltwater taffy.  Beach jewelry.  Nail polish that changes color in the sunlight.

More toasting.

Bliss?  You could say so.

Date:	2009-03-06 16:45
Subject:	Friday at five,
Security:	Public
Mood:	mellow

Sitting on the fire escape, the five o'clock sun casting long shadows across my lap, soaking in the sixty-five degree glory after a miserable winter of frozen noses and toes.  Watching like a creeper as people creep through the alley below, unaware that they're under surveillance.  The glow of light softening the ugliness of the window screen.  Excited about tonight.  Olive Garden.  Drinks.  He's Just Not That Into You.  Exactly the lame kind of fun I need in my life right now.

Everything is pretty much perfect.

Except for THE thing.  And that's the thing whose imperfection renders everything else meaningless.

Friday the 13th
Birthday

6am run + pilates + practice + Yellow Barn audition + free coffee and brownie sundae at Donna's + roommate dinner with Will at Ra + hot yoga in Fells Point + sparkly dresses + pre-gaming with the boys + Friends: The One With Brad Pitt and Joey's Thanksgiving Pants + party at Emily's + being in that great drunk state where you feel fantastic and love everyone, even people you normally hate + drunk sex +

Saturday the 14th

9am hot yoga + bagels and coffee from the Russian bagel place + eating in the park + hottt shower + Beach Boys + impending practice session + impending shopping for a costume for + impending superheroes/supervillains party tonight

=

a pretty fucking amazing way to kick off my 20's.

Winter break brings out the worst in me.

After a semester of running around bitching and moaning about all the work that was piling up, and consequently doing more bitching and moaning than actual work, the arrival of winter break hit me like a ton of bricks laced with Ambien and carbohydrates.  The prospect of no deadlines or responsibilities for three whole weeks was both liberating and lethal.  I wasted no time morphing into full hibernation mode; unlike music or writing, I had spent my entire life immersed in the art of being lazy, and had long since perfected it.

My bed became the headquarters for this extended bout of sloth.  Propping my laptop at the foot of the queen-size beast, I spent the majority of my days in resplendent languor, elbows anchored in front of the computer, legs spread starfish-like atop the pillows. 

In a few short weeks, I managed to inject an entire semester's worth of TV into my skull.  It was a feat of Olympic proportions.  Now for some arbitrary awards doled out by me, akin to the Emmys or Grammys but better because I'm giving them out (the Choochys? Might work) :
- Best New Guilty Pleasure: Privileged (Gossip Girl in Palm Beach?  Yes please)
- Best New Favorite Show on TV, Ever: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Watched all four seasons.  Unhealthy and addicting, like nicotine and meth)
- Best Show That I Haven't Seen But Wish I Had The Time To Watch Because I'd Doubtless Fall In Love: Mad Men (Watched a couple episodes over the summer, but they're hour-long episodes and span two seasons.  A challenge for the next extended vacation?)

Every once in awhile I'd be forced to emerge from my Cave of Considerable Thread Count to scavenge for sustenance or empty my bowels of by-product of said sustenance.  Eat, sleep, poop.  Preferably not consecutively.  After years of envying my dog's blissfully simple life, I had finally achieved it.  I congratulated myself with a celebratory nap.

Soon the cave gave way to unwelcome intruders.  The pillows were buried in a landslide of clothes, haphazardly strewn about and pathetically marinating as I hunkered down in the covers over the weeks in various states of undress.  Empty water bottles piled up; the bed began masquerading as a recycling plant.  Price tags snapped off of new clothes; miscellaneous cords (headphones, iPod USB, phone charger); bubble wrap from the unsuccessful attempt at avant-garde plastic packaging fashion; all became pawns in the ruthless hostile takeover by inanimate object of my sanctuary.

Sometimes an uncharacteristic spark of productivity would alight within me, and I would sate this unnatural urge with much-needed practice or exercise.  Unfortunately, this spark was but an ember protruding from ashen, cooling coals, brutally extinguished by the promise of unwatched episodes of "Always Sunny" eagerly awaiting my return to the cave.

It's Sunday, January 4, 2009.  In less than a week I make my return to Baltimore, expectations, and disappointments.  Reality, in short.  I am already beginning to regret my carefree sabbatical over these past couple weeks.  The new semester brings ulcer-inducing prospects of audition tapes for competitions and summer festivals, 27 academic credits, and The Most Important Audition of My Life Thus Far (And Quite Possibly Ever).

It's been a good run.  But now it's time to leave the cave.

Snippet of an iChat conversation with Lynn:

Lynn: [My boyfriend Alex] thinks we sound alike too
Lynn: i sound nothing like you
Lynn: my voice is so weird and childish and yours is just like... "i'm cool now go get me something to eat"



She makes me smile.

It's 4:13 in the morning. I downed my second pot of coffee about an hour ago. I just finished watching "French Kiss" starring Meg Ryan and Kevin Kline, a movie so obnoxiously awful that the only reason I didn't turn it off was because I was too busy twitching from all the caffeine. I think it's mainly because I don't like watching Meg Ryan. She plays such a pathetic character in so many of her movies. It's not very endearing. Kline's French was plausibly convincing though. Plausibly convincing is redundant, I'm pretty sure.

Before that I watched "Down With Love" with Renee Zellweger and Ewan MacGregor. It was one of those last-resort movies because I was running out of movies to watch. (I've now officially exhausted every single movie in Emily's apartment. I am sad.) But I ended up really enjoying it. It was cute and quirky and the 60's were such a great era for fashion and architecture. I think my tastes are becoming more antiquated as I get older. A few years ago it was the 80's, then a brief flirtation with the 70's, and now this. Anyway. Cute movie. And I finally have a solid appreciation for Renee. She's so endearingly charming. Also redundant, I realize.

Speaking of Zellweger, she's allegedly in Baltimore right now. There were trailers and shit all around the park today, and they were filming a scene right outside the apartment. At first I thought people were just being loud. Then I peeked outside the window and saw men in suits milling around...and then all these old-fashioned cars...and women in crisp tailored dresses and funny-looking hats...it was pretty exciting. So I did a little Googling and it turns out they're filming some biopic about George Hamilton's childhood, and Zellweger's playing his mother. Maybe my historical regression will continue and I'll get into a 50's phase next.

Slightly fading. My internal clock has officially gone haywire. Maybe I'll make another pot?

Date:	2008-06-26 10:37
Subject:	Whipped?; or, John's Taking Me to the Beach This Weekend in Return for This Entry
Security:	Public
Mood:	hungry

I hate fat people.

Now don't get me wrong; normally I have no problem with them. I'm not into size-ism, or whatever bigotry these whales claim is exercised upon them as they simultaneously shove Big Macs down their gullets and sue Micky D's for daring to expand their waistlines. I love my Cinnabons and Haagen-Dazs as much as the next person. Usually I'm pretty friendly towards fat people, because let's face it, they make up two-thirds of the population so it's a social necessity, and let's face it, they make me look better by comparison.

But the minute they lumber onto a plane and squeeze their junky trunks into the seat next to mine is when all my sympathy for these heifers promptly 'chutes up and plummets out the emergency exit. And I always end up next to these guys, because karma's a bitch on her period and I'm withholding brownies from her.

Mmm, brownies.

So these hipporific porpoises shovel themselves into the neighboring seat and of course they need to fold up the armrest to accommodate their spacious badonkadonks. Said badonkadonks then proceed to pan out and comfortably settle onto a good portion of MY seat, so now I've been restricted to half a seat on the plane when I specifically remember paying for a whole one.

I try to take a nap in an attempt to momentarily escape from this ordeal, my face practically plastered against the window because I'm now confined to a little sliver of seat starting from the middle of the SkyMall catalogue in front of me and ending at the wall of the plane. I start dozing off only to be jolted awake by the stench of a gym sock soaked in sour milk and the feel of a soft, gross entity brushing against my shoulder. I squint and set eyes on a doughy pink arm oozing out of a taut sleeve and spilling over onto my seat like a massive over-leavened baguette. It's not wearing deodorant. And it's touching my shoulder!

The most horrible thing about this event and others like it is that I'm powerless to say anything. "Would you mind scooting your ginormous flank over a bit?" "Would you please rearrange your expansive rear end so I can have some room to uncurl my toes?" "Move over, fatty!" There's no way I'd ever be able to say these things. All I can do is contort my body to make it as compact as possible so as to reduce the frequency of shoulder-on-baguette contact and wait till I get home to voice my frustrations in a seldom-read journal entry.

Not even a week into the new year and I'm already behind.
Didn't practice for the entire week that Will was here. He left yesterday, and I still haven't done anything. Except for crossword puzzles. I've done about thirty of those.

I want to go back to school. I'm not prepared. I haven't learned any new rep, I've been slacking on stuff I've already learned. I haven't read nearly as much as I wanted. I still have a week. What the hell can you do in a week?

People owe me money. I'm sick and tired of being a pussy about shit like that. But it's true. "Can you buy (insert-whatever-the-hell-it-is-they-want-here) for me? I'll pay you back..." or "Can you just put it all on your card and I'll give you cash?"
Bullllshit. And that's how I get stuck with a ninety-dollar dinner tab and various other account-draining miscellany when all I ordered was a damn salad.

My skin is getting so dry.

The first dream I have since I've been at Peabody, and it turns out to be a nightmare.

I discover this beautiful, tropical, "The Beach"-sans-DiCaprio strip of paradise just by walking through a secret passageway in my house. I'm on a steep hill overlooking the water; Caribbean blue kissing white sand. Naturally this place is owned by the current leader of the Nazi world, who's giving a chilling speech down below on the shore.
In my dream, this guy looks like the spawn of Uncle Fester and the Pope, with all the creepy charisma of Jim Jones, which...is terrifying, if you really think about that combo.
So he's giving a speech, microphone in hand, rousing the hateful spirits of the Aryan population, and suddenly he's up on the hill. Since dreams are stupid and they jump around like that, I don't see him coming and don't have time to get the fuck out of there.
Of course he's not too thrilled to see me. I don't remember what he said to me - nothing short of jovial pleasantries, I'm sure - because I was too busy trying not to die. This asshole was physically trying to kick me off the hill and send me to my watery (albeit pretty) grave.
I'm not going down without a fight. I summon up my ninja-ness, wrestle him to the ground, drag him back into the passageway, so now we're in my house except it looks more like Hogwarts or the place in Peabody where the spiral staircase is.
I'm still fighting this guy, and I'm not doing too shabby. My sister helps me take him down. Despite looking like an undead corpse, Nazi Dude is still strong as hell, so the most we could do was lock him in my parents' bathroom. For some reason we thought this would be a safe place to keep an angry racist totalitarian leader.
The next morning at breakfast I ask my parents if Nazi Dude is still in their bathroom. They say no, he escaped, and I'm pretty much quaking with fear for the rest of the dream, which thankfully doesn't last too much longer.
Of all the things to dream about, being on a Nazi hit-list has to rank somewhere near the bottom.
Thank god for alarm clocks.

June's going by surprisingly fast for someone who sits on her ass and doesn't do shit all day.
Seriously, I've been back from China for a couple weeks, and I've been gradually metamorphosing into a pathetic waste of space. The first week back was good.
The first week, I was jet-lagged like no other, so I kept going to bed at 3:30 AM, waking up two hours later, not taking naps in the middle of the day, and I got so much done. I practiced. I read. I ate at socially normal hours. I was thrilled. I loved jet lag. Then somewhere along the line my body started adjusting to being back in the Western Hemisphere and I sank back into my old, awful habits of parking it in front of the TV for mind-numbing hours on end and catching up on my celebrity gossip and my Cosmo and my tanning.

Least I'm really tan now.

I repainted my room (the paint chip says the color's "Savannah Mist", but it's this minty soft green that totally brightens everything up) and got new furniture and bedding (a combination of prints and florals that Etro would be proud of) but the walls are bare because I haven't deemed anything worthy enough to hang up yet. Except the huge mirror at the head of my bed that looks like a sex mirror.
This is how empty my life is. I've been reduced to writing about sex mirrors on LJ because I have nothing to show for this summer so far. I spent all of yesterday watching "Curb Your Enthusiasm" reruns. My life is bland and uneventful and free of any kind of turbulence whatsoever.

And I love it.

I started practicing again yesterday, and it felt good. I want to get through an assload of repertoire this summer.
Time for Bach.

I've been home for half a week now. I never realized how much I missed foliage until I saw how pretty the trees in my neighborhood and backyard have gotten. So far my days have been a comfortable mesh of reading, practicing, and tanning.
Off to China in two days. Because my dad's an idiot, he booked our flight for 8:30 in the morning, which means I'll have to get up at God knows what hour and haul my cranky ass down to the airport, no doubt looking disheveled and gross and other generally charming adjectives. Then we fly to Washington, D.C. to switch planes and brace ourselves for the grueling 15-hour flight to Beijing. (And I swear I won't set foot in that nasty plane lavatory, not even once. I'll freaking shut down my digestive system if I have to.)
To further prove the idiocy of my father, we'll only be bringing along teeny-tiny carry-on bags because when we land in Beijing we only have about two and a half hours to hop aboard our flight to Changsha, and Dad thinks checked baggage is too much of a risk, in case the bags get lost or delayed or something. "I made a gamble when booking that flight," Dad told me. Huh. Ya think? So not only am I stuck with a meager quart of 3-oz.-or-less liquid products to tide me over while I traverse halfway around the globe, I'm also gonna have to go Spartan in the clothes and shoes department. Oh, well. I'm always saying how I want to live with less clutter in my life. Let's see how well I really fare when faced with condensing my possessions into an itty-bitty backpack and a suitcase the size of a fat kid's lunchbox.
From what I've gathered, our itinerary is as follows: fly from Beijing to Changsha (the capital of the Hunan province, where most of my Dad's family lives), stay there for a couple days, take the train up to Changchun (where I was born/where my entire immediate family lives), stay for a week and a half, train back to Beijing, look around for a few days, then back to the States.
I've never been to Changsha, and I've been kind of apprehensive. First of all, it's in the South. And South China really skeeves me out, just from the stories I've been fed about it (mainly from my colorfully imaginative mother). I had a mental image of the South as being a mutant cross-breed of Harlem and the worst parts of The Good Earth. But I just did some Googling and it really seems like a happenin' place, folks. (Pardons for slipping into occasional BradyBunchspeak.) Apparently "Changsha people boast to be the best gourmand of China and here people spend a lot of time eating. ... No matter the featured snacks - 'Stinky Tofu' and 'Sisters'Rice Balls' in Huogongdian (Fire Palace) or the famous spicy shrimps at Nanmenkou, the many types of delicious local food will not disappoint any guests." Mm. Who could pass up stinky tofu and rice balls? I know I can't!

Now. Time to do laundry and get some lunch. See you in June.