If you're reading this, it means that Anna and I just got back from our (just over a) week-long trip to Brussels and Venice. We can do that, you know, because we're in Europe. And you're (most likely) in the States. So there!
I'm probably glad that I'm back on a real computer, instead of an internet cafe one. I'm probably desperately trying to record a few more tracks before I lose access to the recording setup that I've got here (somebody else's computer). I'm also probably packing and mentally preparing for my return to the States, which will happen in a couple of weeks.
We probably had a wonderful time, visiting monuments you'll not see soon and eating food to which you wish you had regular access. Things like real pommes frites and Belgian beer and real Italian food from real Italians. Aah; a place where a soda is assumed to be an Italian Soda. Just like how toast here is French toast (not really) and kisses here are implied to be French as well (I haven't done any research into the matter). Beats Freedom Kisses any day of the week. But possibly not Hershey Kisses. Especially those caramel center ones that they've got.
At any rate, it's probably good to be home, even though the trip was probably really sweet and edifying and exhilarating and such. Please write, because we're probably lonely/sick of each other after a week together with nobody else. But don't write physical letters to me, because they'll get here about the moment I reach the States. If you want to write them, send them to the Potsdam address. But now I'm really getting ahead of myself, aren't I?
-Donald 02.16.2005

-Update 02.27.2005
Yes. All of what I wrote before I left is true. I would like to add that pizza in Italy is a billion times better than pizza in any other country. The trip was really great, mostly involving walking around for twelve hours a day, pausing only for local food treats (see above). Three weeks or so left in Montpellier! So begins the crazy countdown, where time loses its relativity and all of your experiences seem like a blur. Followed by culture shock on re-entry, then eventual boredom, followed by renewed desire to leave the country again. Boy, I really have a tendency to get ahead of myself these days!
-D

Assume that there is a heaven, and assume that most decent people go there when they die, like in the movie Ghost. Say you're Demi Moore and your love for your dead boyfriend has just been validated because he re-appeared to you after killing your potential murderer and then ascended to heaven. So there you are, certain that the man you love is dead, is no longer with you, just went to heaven. Furthermore, you're pretty certain that you're going to go there, because, you know, you don't covet your neighbor's wife or eat too much or anything like that. So what do you do? How do you live the rest of your life? Alone? Because you know that if you find another lover, and he goes to heaven as well, then when you get up there, there are going to be two guys who love you and they don't know each other and then what have you got?
Therefore, heaven is either a big faceless orgy, or we're already in heaven and when you die, that's it, because it would just be too complicated otherwise. Which isn't a huge loss, because how great can heaven be if you can't have sex there unless you're married? Is the main appeal of heaven the fact that there are no demons torturing you regularly and the central air works? Because I'd take no afterlife to the prospect of that one. Basically, how could heaven be any better than life here on Earth, for better or worse? Why not act as though we're already there?
Therefore we should all have more orgies. You only get one chance.

People are just locks and keys. Some people are closed up tight and they're just waiting for the right key to open them. Some locks have just one key, and there's only one copy. Some locks can be opened by just about anything; even a paperclip or a fingernail will do the trick. Some locks can't even be locked, and sometimes this causes trouble.
There are big ornate keys with jewels and gold. And there are specialized keys with six sides that open very fancy hard-to-open locks. There are plain keys about which nobody thinks twice, but that everybody has on their chain. And there are blanks that have lots of potential, but require some changing to really work. And there are master keys that seem to magically open up all of the locks on the block.
I got a new pen today, but otherwise it's been uneventful. In honor of my new pen, the digital ink stops here and I'm off to write a letter.
-D

I was talking with an acquaintance last night, whose main line of conversation was that she misses "emo people." This is what she said. After some probing, I found that this means that she misses cliques. She misses how at the lunch table in high school, everybody sat with their own group, and intermingling was kept to a minimum because in the world outside of your lunch table there is nothing to find but ridicule and possible rejection. She misses going to concerts with everybody dressing and acting and living and fucking and caring the same way. People who are "So LA" because they're always dropping names. People who wear dreadlocks and mean it, damn it!
At first, my inclination was to slap her in the head, and vacate the premises. But seeing as how the premises was largely occupied by good friends, who would most likely be disconcerted by me whacking their flat-mate and running away screaming, I decided to take the high road, and give what she was saying some thought, in an effort to possibly prolong the inevitable slappage.
It's a funny observation she made, and it's a strange, but valid, thing to miss in France. Because here, simply by being born and raised French, you undoubtedly dosubscribe to a certain set of preconceived notions. Wine is worth caring about, as is food. Strangers are to be regarded with caution. It's important that every time you leave the house, you're dressed like the mannequins in front of the stores downtown, whether it's the haute couture look or the vintage subculture look you're sporting. Everybody takes a break at lunch, and on Sunday, everything's closed down, and this is a good thing. It's called having a culture, and it's something we're missing in the States. In order to have a culture in the States, you've got to be an "emo person." Or a jock or an artist or a bohemian or a businessman or a New Yorker or whatever. You choose it and you be it, and for the while that you are it, you subscribe to it more or less fully. And you can potentially move on, change genre, if you like. Unless you're born into another culture, like, for example, your parents are immigrants and you speak a second language at home, or perhaps something less drastic, this is your option in the States. Because we don't agree on things like schedule, food, language, religion, whatever. It's a good and bad thing, because it's by nature an ambiguous thing.
But there's no real getting around being French. With rare exception, it's a culture of people who act in a certain set of ways. Which isn't to say there's not variation, especially between regions (for example, between here and Paris). But their look is just that, a look. At the bottom of that, they're still French. And we're still American. Which means we can understand your culture, and adopt it, but we'll never really own it like you do. And perhaps it's silly to miss that superficiality, but it's something that is lacking here, so it's not outright wrong to do so. It's just a little weird.
We did both agree, however, that Icelandic music is the coolest thing ever. Basically everything that comes out of Iceland is solid gold. Check it out: Bjork, Sigur Ros, Mum, the list goes on. Their government actually funds good music. When do you think our government's going to jump on that bandwagon? Four years? However long it is, it's too long. So the moral of my story is, give me some money.

Practicing to be a jazz guitarist is hard work. Duh. Lately, I've been finding that the technique is a real bastard. I admire classical musicians, and their static licks. When you encounter a hard run in a classical piece, you can rest comforted in the knowledge that you can just practice it, thousands of times a day if necessary, until you get it right. And because you're in the classical mentality, you're never going to play it absolutely perfectly and you'll suffer a career full of guilt for not being a music-producing emotion machine and you might as well just commit suicide right now, but at least you have the discrete nature of what you play. You play the black notes on the page.
But it's different for a jazz player. You have to practice and practice, sure, but, what, exactly? You have to know your standards, yeah. That doesn't take very long, and in fact, you can play songs that you've never even heard as long as they're in your book when you're on stage, or whatever. No, you just sort of have to practice for contingencies. "What if the song I'm playing has this crazy chord in it, and there I am stuck with nothing to play? What if I want to play really fast all of a sudden, and my fingers won't let me?" You just have to be prepared, and it's frustrating. I guess this is why it's best not to practice jazz alone, if you can help it. Jazz, like all other addictive habits, is best practiced in groups, in relative moderation.
Man, I gotta get somewhere where I've got musician friends. This country is in some crazy alternate music dimension where bad house and cheesy everything else reign. Well, to be fair, one can hardly blame them for making cheesy songs. Have you heard the French language?

I'm forcing myself to write poems. Song lyrics. Because I always seem to lean toward just waiting for inspiration to strike, which is an unreliable method for being a musician. A singer/songwriter type. It works, but not, you know, all of the time. And I want to be consistent. So I'm forcing myself to write lyrics as an exercise in craft versus inspiration, Trying to put a little more concertedness in the effort, as it were. We'll see if it bears any more fruit. Or if the fruit it bears is like, little and hard and only good for making juice or pies.
But it's not like I'm going to post them here or anything. Ugh. Too exposing. I'm not as brave as some people I know. But I wouldn't need to be brave if I wrote better lyrics. Hence the exercise.
Anna and I are going to Belgium (Brussels) and Italy (Venice) in a couple of weeks. So there. Because there's this Valentine's Day thing, and then there's a certain three year anniversary on the 24th. Boo-ya. And who says February is the coldest month of the year? Well, it is pretty cold... But there's so much red going around...
Okay, I can tell when it's just a rant I'm ranting. If you have more than two sets of ellipses in your document, it's time to say: Bye.