upgrade

Three 'til race day and I feel super under trained. Eh...I'll take it slow.

My last weekend in Boston was great fun between Penguin Pizza, a trip to Boston's greatest view, and a random evening waltzing into a Red Sox game in the seventh inning and sitting behind the third baseman! Of course this was my last weekend in Boston...Bach and baseball? And great friends.

My landlady obviously could not wait until I moved out as she stood behind me in my room as I was packing. Nerve wracking...it took me three days to pack and move. In between times I was having meals with Marius Alina and Jay. Dmitriy also joined. I fancy Fitzwilly's in Northampton and hope to return there often upon my visits to Western Massachusetts.

There is everything right about grits and venison sausage. And bull riding. And being friends with two exceedingly kind Romanians.

Oprah taped her last show and went on air yesterday. So many ends to eras, so close together. Jerry Bock, Bin Laden and now Oprah? Can we just slow down a bit?

I'm sitting in my childhood bedroom listening to the rain. It was nice to see my parents for a while before I hit the road again West. The lightening was particularly noteworthy tonight- bolts shot across the sky like electric silly string. Moving boxes into this room was not a very attractive thing if I was an outsider looking in but I know that it is very very temporary. Deem it a developmentally innocuous gesture.

My sister and I chatted in length about her wedding. Her bedroom is right on the other side of this wall and what it contains is not her youthful laughter and beaming radiance demonstrated in her phone conversations but a wedding dress and a bunch of boxes. Her wedding is in October. I leave the country in less than a month. My parents are speaking of a downsize. We made it- or are making it. The way up and the way out is in.

I left Phoenix with heavy heart but I left Amherst with hardness. Inspiration. Experience. I felt little nostalgic pain because everything still seems very current. I'm living in the present- something I am not prone to do. And I love it. And hate it.

Antonios.

Jen recommended that I read Nick Hornby's "Song Book" after I turned her on to his new collaboration with Ben Folds. He [Hornby] was absolutely right about being addicted to songs and how one's persistent repetition of a song should define the song's worth in popular culture. Nobody should be beyond popular music, especially if they cannot freely and eloquently talk about it. Hornby can, which is why this book is fascinating.

Also why I played Taylor Swift's "Mean" seven hundred times within the last twenty four hours.

Running in the morning followed by a trip to Ontario. Nothing wrong with a little Canadian pregame.

Thank you for two open eyes and many vessels sailing, Amherst.