a question

why are british accents so incredible? why do they make nearly everything sound forgivable and even charming? and why is this predicament worsened when the accent is irish or scottish? and don't even get me started on australian. i can't even speak about it.

laura-jane visited me last week, and i haven't been able to stop using an accent since. and then some english faculty member just came into the library now requesting a score. this was our conversation (make sure you think in the accent):

him: i'm sorry darling, i'm going to be a real bugger, but would you mind taking the trouble to look up a score for me?
me: i'd be glad to marry you look it up for you.
him: thanks, love.
me: (fumbling awkwardly with the computer as if i could never find it fast enough for him) oh yes, it's here. let me just go calleveryoneiknowandtellthemyourvoiceisamazing find that score for you.
him: i'm terribly grateful. sorry for being such trouble. you're a darling.
me: no, you jest. (this is where the conversation is fake)
him: no, really, run away with me.
me: deal.
him: (this part's real again) well cheers, love.
me: okay see ya! (all too eager, diana, all too eager...)

confession.

i like to listen to classical music on a staticky radio station.

sometimes i turn it up to hear the static more.

it's like a window in time. something in the way the music travels through the interference puts me on the same page as mozart or rachmaninov. something in it is timeless and transcendent, as if i were listening to it at the same time as say a soldier in WWII or someone in an elegant parlor in the 17th century.

last night i sat in my car for a long while in the parking lot. chopin's concerto no. 2 in f minor was playing on the radio, and i couldn't bear to turn it off. i had homework to do, dinner to eat, and people to call, but that was all put on hold because i needed to hear that music. i needed to hear something, do something that was bigger than me.

i used to think that i could survive on bread and water alone. ["that's a piece of cake," i would say. and undoubtedly one of my smart-alecky friends would say, "technically you won't be allowed any cake."] i've decided that i could survive only on bread and water....and chopin's concerto no.2 in f minor.

so i thought last night about how brilliant chopin was. i mean really brilliant. i spend my days learning about brilliant people, particularly musicians and artists, and i am constantly reminded of my hopeless mediocrity. (i think that my thirst for creating will never be fullfilled). and then i started thinking about the two or three truly brilliant people i know. they either don't know they're brilliant, or they pretend they don't know. sometimes the things they are capable of doing are also capable of wrecking them. and sometimes those same things make others come alive.

too close for comfort.

Last night I had a dream that will undoubtedly alter the course of my day. Right now, I should be studying for a major exam, but I can't shake the images of the dream from my mind. I can't stop hearing the words that were said or seeing the look in the eyes. My voice has never sounded so desperately vulnerable yet remarkably strong in all my life. The realness of it is rather frightening to me--so much so that my stomach is wildly reacting to it, doing free-falls off of a precipice and smashing into the shock of water below.

If only it were another time or another place.

But the Lord has seen it fitting for me to be here and now and has not sketched this other road into my course. [Unfortunately, upon seeing the "you are here" symbol (I had to wipe a smudge from the glass to see it), I immediately burst into hot tears.]

I beg to someday know why certain things happen to me. How did I get here? How did I get to this place, sitting on my couch during a fierce thunderstorm, writing what I never say? How many people will I meet in my lifetime, and why? Why do some people affect me temporally and others eternally?

Every now and then, I am completely incapacitated by my thoughts. Today I fear that I will be utterly useless. Incapable of functioning normally. Never fully present in the room. And I fear that I will continue to see a face that perhaps will always cause me pain.

"a boy and a girl"

this is a beautiful poem by octavio paz set to incredible music by eric whitacre.

streched out
streched out on the grass
a boy and a girl
savoring their oranges
giving their kisses
like waves exchanging foam

streched out on the beach
a boy and a girl
savoring their limes
giving their kisses
like clouds exchanging foam

streched out
streched out underground
a boy and a girl
saying nothing
never kissing
giving silence
for silence.

To Walt

whitman's words + rorem's music = magic

Sometimes with one I love,
I fill myself with rage,
for fear I effuse unreturn'd love;
But now I think there is no unreturn'd love--
the pay is certain, one way or another;
I loved a certain person ardently,
my love was not return'd;
Yet out of that I have written these songs.

(please do yourself a favor and listen to this
ned rorem song as sung by susan graham.)

birthday gift

"Unyielding spiritual fortitude is what we need."
[o.chambers]

if i could have just one thing, it would be that.

my birthday is in less than two weeks. think you all could work on rustling me up some serious spiritual fortitude? yeah, that would be great.

a thing of beauty and a joy forever.

in other news, this delightful flower appeared in my front yard* today.

*yard = very small patch of land adjacent to my sliding glass door.

here's the link

http://www.livejournal.com/users/greensing/

do you think i should switch to blogger? i'm getting tired of my old livejournal ways.