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| Hmm, who is still alive out there?
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| The man is peeling a clementine. "Do you know what happens to people
like that?" he asks me while his fingers navigate the skin of the
fruit; his eyes are fixed on my cousin who is masterfully playing a
self-composed piece. The skin falls off as one whole, practically
undisturbed piece.
"What?"
"Their lives are generally cruel. They have bitter fates. You seem to share similar qualities."
I was surprised by his quick assessment of both my cousin and myself. I
didn't have anything to say to him, feeling a bit nervous by his
overall demeanor and his almost mystic presence. He didn't bother
saying anything else. He ate his clementine with eyes closed and head
tilted back.
I had been up visiting family this weekend after many postponements. I
dutifully took my cousin to her piano lessons at the Conservatory where
I watched and waited for her in the practice room before her lesson
began. Seated across from me was an older gentleman who had brought
with him a bag full of clementines and the fatalist's charm.
The cousin is barely twelve years old and a child prodigy by any
understanding of the definition. Her piano lessons began only a
couple years ago, and already she is capable of handling the most
complicated pieces of Liszt's and Scriabin's that her little hands will
allow. Her skill has not grown in like with her size; those hands
can't yet reach the octave-and-a-half necessary to truly master the
Sonata in B-Minor, but her frame is getting there. Her self-composed
music that she described as "[her] lifestory of pain and sorrow" is
both amazing in its beauty and almost jaw-dropping in its
complexity--such complexity from this little girl! I was
expecting something along the caliber of "Mary Had a Little Lamb", not
"Appassionata".
She reads like a fiend. The American greats were long finished, and she is quickly working her way through the Russians.
"When I finished Anna Karenina," she tells me, "I paced around the room like a madwoman. Don't you agree? I mean, it was amazing."
I smiled and nodded, recalling that I stopped reading that particular
Tolstoy three quarters of the way through. I wrote down the names of
some other authors I have had the opportunity to enjoy in recent years,
and was thankful that she didn't retort that she had already read all
of them.
But yes, that man was right. Her fate is bitter, and it's all the
worse that she has the mature mental capacity to fully understand the
misery in which she lives. That misery is both self-created and a
product of her miserable environment. As for myself--that
prophetic man may be on to something, but I believe I'm still too blind
in Plato's cave to quite realize what, or care.
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| I've been neglecting this. I have no time. I have no time. I have No Time.
I'm not sure what more I can explain given the constraints. Would
try to now--there are many stories to share--but I have an evening
lined up already with sleep scheduled for sometime from 4am-8am.
Be back soon darling. | | |
| You are a law of physics not yet discovered and nothing can alter the
hold you have on me. I am bound by you like I am bound by gravity
and Newton's Laws.
My metaphysics will find a cure.
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| So he has left. Gone to Paris for about four months. Pity--things were just starting to heat up.
Meanwhile, I've decided it is time I start economizing. As I have
mentioned in earlier posts, I am horrible at saving money.
Although my salary is perfectly suitable for a person of my age and
profession--more than enough, really--I somehow still scrape by, living
paycheck to paycheck. The cause of my slow path towards
debt? Rent, followed by expensive lunches and dinners enjoyed
with even more expensive drinks, shoes, clothes, and the occasional spa
treatment (waxing, and the such). The only thing I don't splurge
on is the hair. For some reason, I am perfectly comfortable dying
out of the box and going to cheaper salons; I did however purchase one
of those $100 hair straighteners the other day. My hair is
already straight but not perfectly. There are always the unruly
waves and kinks but not so anymore with my ceramic uber-tool (I
purchased a Solia ceramic straightener for those interested).
My plan towards being thrifty begins with cooking at home. Currently,
my fridge contains a bottle of spatlesse, a bottle of vodka, a bottle
of Bailey's, an open bottle of Beaujolais (delish), a shelf full of
Dasanis (I know it ain't fresh from the spring but it's pretty darn
good and far superior to Aquafina), a couple IBC root beers, a jar of
olives, a basket of farmer's market tomatoes (yellow), and two granny
smith apples. Clearly, I do not cook though the tomatoes may
throw the casual observer off.
The freezer is no better: four CPK pizzas (jerk chicken and bbq chicken) and a container of lemon sorbet.
I figure if I shop at the grocer's for meats and get one of those
Foreman grills, I will be saving a significant amount of money. I can eat a
nice breakfast, skip the fatty lunch, and have a healthful dinner sans
fat. It will be killing two birds with one stone: healthy eating
and saving money. Genius. Really genius.
(A smarter person might even skip the bottled water routine and
actually use the internal fridge filter/ice system. But no; I
like having pre-proportioned water in ready-to-go bottles. Besides, my rope has still got plenty of slack.)
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