no place more humbling...

than the desert. The great wide expanse of land that isn't empty, no, not in the slightest, but full and resounding with beauty with life with energy if you know where to look.

And I encourage you to, indeed, take a look. I will go with you. It is a place I feel safe in traveling through, the last great uncontrolled (by human hands) environment. Freedom. Oh, were I but a lizard on your sandy red boulders, dearest desert. What times we would have.

Back across the desert, up up the mountains and down down to the sea, I return to you. I am feeling poetic as if it were a hormone injected into my blood or injested along with macaroni and cheese. It comes from listening to Ani incessantly and reading Cunt voraciously. And the joy I get from the raw, wild desert.

However, I imagine my audition was less than poetic. It was not bad. Maybe not good enough for a potential graduate student. I have no idea what they expect to hear. I no longer care what it was actually like. The next will be better. Besides, all I could ask for was that Valkyries went off without a hitch, and it did. Schmu.

I reconnected with an old friend. Sommer moved to Phoenix in middle school, and since our communication had died to a mere murmer. Yet we met this weekend, and got caught up. She has grown into a woman I am very proud of, and there was no difficulty in feeling like buds again. A beautiful thing. Should I indeed go to school there (if my audition was better than I suspect it sounded) I will have a connection and a very good one, at that.

So, now I must prepare for my big travels. The one that might require my entire inventory of underwear (and long underwear). That might find me stranded somewhere in Detroit or Chicago with a large suitcase and a trombone, or it might go off flawlessly and effortlessly. We shall see. I get to go to Canada! I get to wear scarves and hats and mittens! I will meet and befriend new people! I will impress amaze and astonish three more professors of music! Life is beautiful!

I'm very tired. More tomorrow. Happy Sunday, all.