When you're a big, bright, shining star,
you can look back and know that
I loved you when...

when life was simple
and money didn't matter
and we soaked up the music
because it moved our souls
not the charts

I loved you when...

when friends were genuine
and words were true
and kisses never tasted so sweet

I loved you then,
and I love you still.

Quote of the day: "It's like we live in a snowglobe."

Well, the closing stretch of my first semester as a graduate student is upon me.

There is only one day left until I fly away for Thanksgiving break - time out of Gotham to which I am truly looking forward. Things I can't wait to do: 1. roll around in the yard (if you lived here, it would make sense) 2. cruise down the highway at 70 mph behind the wheel of my own car, instead of behind a Lebanese taxi driver doing 70 down Broadway 3. see my friends and family in person rather than via email 4. savor my Grama's cooking 5. watch football, lots of football

Did I mention that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday? It is.

For some reason this caught my eye on the way home tonight. It was posted outside the church down the street. Sign?

"Don't waste what the good Lord gave you. Do with and use what you got."

Vanilla candles
line the edge of the bathtub
as she waits for him

but time passes and
her passion fades, grows cold when
he never comes home.

Last night's opera excursion was fabulous. Lincoln Center was the ideal escape from the miserable wind and rain. Alexander Dumas and Giuseppe Verdi carried us off from the drudgery of schoolwork to an evening in Paris.

As an aside, I realized during the second act that LaTraviata is the opera Richard Gere takes Julia Roberts to in Pretty Woman.

Where else but New York will you find a playbill advertising lofts for $1.2 billion. Yes, BILLION. Who wants to pay that much to live in a building with 50 other people?

After the show, we headed down to Tribeca for cocktails and found several fun, new hot spots.

On the way home, Kyoko even met a cute guy on the train. He's from Israel and sells real estate here. (And I ask myself, why are Israelis selling real estate in New York?) God Bless America.

It seems that every turning point in my life is inextricably linked with a particular song. For good or bad, these songs have become the soundtrack of my life. Below is a list of songs with significance. Each one has a story that goes with it. Maybe someday I'll put up the adjoining story.

More as I think of them...

Alabama - Angels Among Us
Alladin - Friend Like Me
Blood, Sweat, & Tears - Spinning Wheel
Blues Traveler - The Hook
Garth Brooks - Shamless
Garth Brooks - Friends in Low Places
CCR - Fortunate Son
Chicago - 25 or 6 to 4
Chicago - Saturday in the Park
Chicago - Will You Still Love Me
Eric Clapton - Tears in Heaven
Stanley Clarke - Justice's Groove
Harry Connick, Jr. - Jill
Miles Davis - Blue in Green
Derek & the Dominos - Bell Bottom Blues
Charles Fambrough - Beautiful Love
Fleetwood Mac - You Make Loving Fun
Aretha Franklin - Think
Macy Gray - I Try
Jeff Healey - Angel Eyes
Hootie & the Blowfish - Only Lonely
Hootie & the Blowfish - Hold My Hand
Iron Butterfly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida
Dr. John - Right Place, Wrong Time
Joshua Kadison - Beautiful in My Eyes
Dave Koz - Misty
Lenny Kravitz - Heaven Help
Last of the Mohicans theme
Les Miserables - On My Own
Bob Marley - 3 Little Birds
Sarah McLachlan - Do What You Have to Do
Steve Miller - The Joker
Ennio Morricone - The Mission
Van Morrison - Brown Eyed Girl
Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - Fishin' in the Dark
Oak Ridge Boys - Come On In
Oasis - Champagne Supernova
Phantom of the Opera - Music of the Night
Joshua Redman - Wish
Rolling Stones - Honky Tonk Women
Rolling Stones - Out of Tears
Semisonic - Closing Time
Bruce Springsteen - My City of Ruin
SWV - Weak
James Taylor - Fire & Rain
Tone Loc - Funky Cold Medina
U2 - Walk On
Wynonna - Love By Grace

Well, I've written two papers since 10am, so there's not much for non-academic stuff that came out of my pen today.

On top of it all, my laptop died again. Toshiba voicemail got the brunt of that.

This little piece was crumpled up in my pocket, not sure what day it's from.

GOOD TIMES
She was lost in far away thoughts, her gaze fixed as she waited for the train. The man sitting beside her wondered what had stolen her attention away.

The trumpet in the background reminded her of a smokey evening shared over coffee and laughter. Good times.

She wondered where they all went, those moments of comfort and ease. They were young then, the whole world and time stretched out in front of them. She was penning the great American novel, and he would be the greatest maestro history had ever known.

The moment lay witness to the sheer exhilaration of hope and vitality. They lived and loved every minute, savoring the journey.

The person that lives directly above me is a timpani player. From the conviction in his crescendo rolls, I'm assuming it's a guy. He practices a lot.

Yesterday I saw giant leaves wallpapered to the sidewalk by the rain.

I caught this line in something I was reading: "rise up to ensnare the traveler" It was thought provoking.

A woman was taking her two boys to school. Not a word was spoken between them. The littler one was dragging his feet and it was driving her nuts.

This afternoon in the subway station, I had one of those moments of staunch reality.

Coming down the stairs, I saw the 3 train stop on the tracks and the rail light turn red. The doors opened and a swarm of high school students exploded onto the platform. The screaming turned to a roar instantaneously as a circle formed and one boy quickly collapsed.

There must have literally been a hundred students. Everyone in the station was looking that direction holding their breath that no shots were fired.

It was one of those moments when you are acutely aware of yourself. When you are smacked by the realization that you are the minority - in skin color, in language, in cultural deportment, in number...

That is still a new feeling to me having come from an area of the midwest where there is about 8% diversity. I wondered if my classmate Chad ever felt that way when we were in school. He was the only black student among us, but even his parent was white, so you have a sense of the homogenity of the area.

Anyway, back to the story.

Just as the cops came down the platform, the 1 pulled in, so I got on and sat down quickly. Students flooded into the train to escape being arrested, etc. It was the oddest sense of reality.

Here I was sitting in a subway car, anxiety spiking, trying to look disinterrested as throngs of high schoolers dressed in what I'd call urban gangwear canvassed the cars looking to displace their energy from the previous situation.

Unwittingly, a homeless women entered our car from another, and began pandering for change. About fifteen students immediately surrounded her and instantly it was all manner of raucous. Chanting, banging on the windows.

A young hispanic woman sitting across from me looked at her friend and said, "Why don't we say anything to them anymore? As adults, why do we let them act this way?"

So true. The whole situation is the reason I'm in grad school. Yet at that moment I had no answers. In the immediacy of the situation, I wouldn't have said anything to them because of the physical threat. You realize that one voice in a scenario like that would not create a change. If I said something, it wasn't as if they would have all turned silent, sat down, and lived the rest of their lives according to the unwritten rules of adulthood and civil demeanor.

It troubles me.

They weren't actually a gang in the formal sense, although interestingly when I got off at my stop there were several Crips representing on the empty platform. It brings up so many questions - tangled, messy questions without clear answers. Sociological, psychological, economic, the list goes on.

A poem for no reason
set to the rhythm of the train
a subtle samba.

I had the chance to hear Peter Jovanovich speak last night, but couldn't go because of a &*^%* meeting with a professor and a presentation group. He is the CEO of the world's largest education company, Pearson Education. They own... well, just about everything. Harcourt Brace, McGraw Hill, Simon & Schuster, etc. BIG. Very big. I'm upset.

Fleetwood Mac comes on the radio as I sit in a little pizza shop writing love stories on napkins. Rain is streaming over the glow of the neon sign in the front window, and on the muted television I can see CNN's Wolfe Blitzer saying the world may end soon. I laughed because I am not afraid to go.

I pictured us on the street next week, ice cream in hand, and me throwing my head back saying, "God, take us now!" I wanted that to be my final moment, standing there with you.

And for that brief and fleeting moment, the world was exactly as it should be.

Listening In

Next to me, classmates from the Business School discuss taking low paying jobs - in international banking. The guy inhales a slice while the girl blathers on about having to bide her time among the ranks of the lowly. Her situation, you must understand, is complicated further because she's getting married in June and her husband-to-be is working at a law firm in Boston. He is making too much money to leave his job and move to New York.

Her story stalls and the guy jumps in with his beautiful Sicilian accent talking about how well it is going with his new girlfriend who is from Texas. The girl asks, "What is it about Texas and Russians?" And he replies, "I'm not from Russia."

I snickered. I couldn't help it. Too funny.

Later, I wondered - as I often do - what percentage of NYC is not American. My guess is ...

The doctor I saw yesterday called this morning to check on me. That freeked me out. I've never had a doctor follow up. Maybe I'm worse off than I thought!?! Did she think I wouldn't make it through the night?

On a sad, but somewhat related note, my favorite professor said that he won't be in class next week. His wife is undergoing neurosurgery. I don't know what type, or for what reason, but quite frankly doctors aren't very aggressive when it comes to opening up a person's skull and messing with the electricity that drives us as living beings. i.e. It can't be good. May a higher power be with her.

Tangent: One of my favorite undergrad Physics professors once said, "Without electricity, we would all just be piles of plasma and bone." Or something like that. I'll consult the book of quotes and report back.

In a tiny Chinese joint, the people scurry in and out. My mind drifts away as I wait to a timeless swirl of light and voices. The inner soundtrack is something like George Crumb, but muffled.

UNTITLED
The sadness is infinite. And your eyes are quiet as you face the mirror. A soft gray fog has settled in and holds you hostage. There are no rules for losing it.

REPLAY
A million times I've played over the scenes in my head. The nights I've never told you, the times we've never met. There was sambuca and reggae at Cafe Monmarte, a bottle of Rothschild cabernet and oysters at Magnus, and of course steaming chai and window shopping on the sidewalk under the trees strung with glowing popcorn lights. Then too was a small leather journal I gave you to capture the images of France as it passed by you on the train bound for a small village overlooking the Mediterranean.

I step off the elevators and you're in my lobby. Or you call at 3 am from Tokyo and with backpack in hand I am on the corner in ten minutes hailing a cab to LaGuardia. I'd swim an ocean of jagged glass to be with you. Not sure you know that, or what you'd say if you did.

She stood on the iron balcony looking out over the bustling streets below. The last wisps of amber were being swallowed up by the midnight sky, and faintly the melody of "Autumn Leaves" drifted out from a shadowed apartment across the avenue.

So far today, I have read about the impact of Tuesday's elections on the rise of GOP power, the effect of overgrazing by cattle in Botswana and the maintenance of watering holes in Kenya, the early 80s Mediterranean fruitfly epidemic in California, and the semiotic dynamic of contraposition in narrative policy analysis.

Can anyone guess what my program of study is? Gotta love grad school.

Words of the day: a priori, de jure, in medias res (Haul out your Latin book.)

Inspired by In Passing, I must share a recent exchange I overheard.

Q: "What do you think of President Bush?" asks Armenian immigrant guy to girl at party.
A: "I like him. I think he's cute," replies Japanese American girl.

Note: This was the follow up to their conversation about the boatload of Haitian immigrants being detained in Florida.

God bless America.

The other day I was thinking about how I haven't really written anything since I've been here. The self-condemnation was intense in light of my vast amount of free time.

I should note that when I write, I can get lost for days, and sometimes it takes me to dark places that I've been trying to avoid lately. So, admittedly I'm leery of letting go.

Tonight, I discovered that I was mistaken. I knew I hadn't cracked a journal since I moved in, but it turns out that I have an inch of random pages of thoughts piled up in my middle desk drawer.

As I pulled them out and started reading, I found two that feel particularly fitting today so I thought I'd share...

NEAR THE CENTER OF THE EARTH
The street musicians in the tunnels
are better than the ones
I just dropped a 20 to see
because their pain is real,
their hope is beautiful,
and their music is peace.

At the club, the poet lights a nickel bag
to get in touch with his pain.
In the tunnels near the center of the earth,
the pain is inescapable
and the poets beg the masses
to part with the crumpled dollars,
the nickels, in their pockets.

LOVING A MUSICIAN
Each refrain reminds me of you,
burns inside my mind.
There's no escape from your presence,
you are a part of me.

Mere words from you,
or a sideways glance,
send me reeling -
turn my whole life upside down,
change everything.

There are days when hearing your music -
the lush, smooth sound -
is torturous
like a zestier crossing my heart.

The high-hat can't get loud enough,
the bass never dark enough.
Your brush colors everything,
each stroke ten staffs
all on top of one another.

Alone, beautiful.
Taken together, a cacophony
too bright to bear,
raw and screaming,
that nothing can silence.

At that moment, I wish
I could return your music,
lift your melody from
my soul, and
make the longing stop.

If I could rap for you, I would -
find all the words you mean to me
and lay them down in front of you
so none of it could be taken back
or misinterpretted, taken lightly.

If I could, I'd unleash something scorching
that could never be played in the front room
but the back porch knows well.

I'd make you feel the raw desire,
smell the magnolias at night
when the air is so thick
it presses on your skin
and even the sweet tea sweats.

HOMELESS -
Gave the laundry money to a man on the street today.
It's cold. Vicious, windy cold.
His darkened shadow etched itself in a corner of my mind as I hurried home.

WALK -
Past the preacher woman on the corner who is trying to save my soul.

PUSH -
Open the door and close it quietly behind me.
I heat a mug of hot cocoa
and sink down into the smooth sound of Charles Fambrough.

Who is the girl in the photograph? What was she thinking and feeling that day? The look in her eyes is one of such excitement and exhilaration. The whole world is open to her - like a vast treasure chest of endless possibility waiting to be explored.

The thoughts flashed through my mind as I quickly put her i.d. back on the library book where she left it...

Today, I followed her across the struggle of her day. The unwillingness to face the world - watched as she forced herself not to retreat. Laughed at her as she feigned order by making sure the bed was made and the dishes washed. Replete with her list of things to do and armed with a stash of cookies, watched as she ventured to the streets below.

I see now why she pushes so hard, always focused on the next goal. On days like this it is all she can do to hang on - white-knuckle gripped to an abstract sense of purpose. The empty hollowness on her face knows no joy, no accomplishment, no sense of worth.

She waits it out, believing the darkness of the day, the week, will pass. She pushes because at the bottom of that abyss there is nothing - only a vague distant memory of a purpose - something she was working toward, with pride perhaps or tolerance.

I wish I could say it is resilience that brings her back, but each time there is no guarantee she will return. No reason, no signal or trigger, just a snap moment that sends her away or draws her back - like a limp ragdoll, a little more tattered each time.

In her numbness lay frustration and hope begotten of patience. I watch her as she continues to wait.

When the sun had finally set, she sat down in the library and wrote about her day.

This morning I ate chocolate peanut butter ice cream for breakfast, and now I'm off to a rooftop party to drink beer and watch the NY marathon.

Tonight was my first experience with NYPD! The lady next door was crazy out of her mind and the police are taking her away. Some woman was pounding on my door and telling me to call 911. Just as I picked up the phone, I heard the blue and white in the hallway.

Can I just take a moment to say what absolute respect I have for the job these guys do? Every day, the crazy shit they see and put up with, laying their lives on the line to make sure the rest of us are safe.

To everyone in this line of duty, and for that matter, all firefighters, emt's, and those in our military. . . Thanks for serving.

Today I got my phone bill. It was mailed from Hicksville, NY. I got a kick out of that. Ah, the simple things.

As adults, we forget that life can be so simple. . .

Today, jogging in Central Park I came upon a class of elementary school students and their teacher taking a midday walk. One little boy who was separated from the group, ran from the sidewalk and with a giant smile climbed to the top of a rock. "I am king! I am king!" he exclaimed jumping with his arms spread wide to the sky, his crown a golden halo of sun. A crowd of his loyal subjects, leaves of every color, gathered below sending up a song to share his joy.

So simple.