Dim images sketched on onionskin drift in the air, slow dirigibles bearing memories: howling at the top of your lungs on the requisite 100-year-old piano; scales deciphered and repeated more out of obsessive compulsion than passion; numerous family members, classmates, co-workers, roommates, and lovers driven to madness by the incessant tapping; griping when the beatles were played on the stereo but listening anyway; a determined obsession with early-90s easy-listening radio love songs; supplication at the feet of many masters big and small, animate and otherwise; calling home to have mom hide your stuffed animals before having a friend from school over; your first kiss, your last kiss, and all the waiting in between; holding a microphone up to anything that vibrates (or should); the first harrowing time you hear your own recorded voice; tracing the fine line between a true calling and misguided obstinacy; losing yourself and losing the hope of finding yourself and then finding both and then losing them again; learning how music makes love to its ecosystem the same way everything else does; having your soul indelibly branded by the ecstasy of musical communion, and forever feeding the desperation for that psychic needle.
"Yeah, he was my roommate in undergrad school--just about drove me nuts teachin' himself to play all kinds of instruments. good guy tho, pretty witty, good roommate - good heart, used to rescue roaches from the kitchen drain. only ate baked spaghetti. surprised he lived thru that as malnourished as he probably was." - Stacy
