NEWPORT JAZZ FESTIVAL 50TH ANNIVERSARY AUGUST 14-16 COME WITH ME PLEASE THANK YOU

ABBEY LINCOLN AND ORNETTE COLEMAN TOGETHER AT CARNEGIE HALL JUNE 20 COME WITH ME TO THAT TOO AND THEN DRIVE ME TO EXPLO THE NEXT MORNING PLEASE THANK YOU  ¶ 14:49

  During my freshman year of college, I had made a box for all of my pictures and letters and other sentimental tokens, and lugged it down to LA with me.

I'm cleaning it out now.

I just gotta get this off my chest, to someone.

I have pictures of the Hollywood sign from when Rachelle, Blair and I had to go to a podiatrist there so that they could get their ACLS checked up on, pictures of the now-infamous tequila night I had in my room with Molly, Ana, Gabe, Romey, and Ian, in which I laughed for about 10 minutes straight at absolutely nothing, and I have pictures of Molly and Rali sitting in trashcans, and ticket stubs for the LA Philharmonic with Gabe, and letters from Matt when he was in basic training at the academy, front-page sports articles about my senior season. I have a videotape, which I've only watched once, of Matt dancing and singing to the ENTIRE Moulin Rouge soundtrack in his bedroom, which he gave to me before we went away to college to remember him by. I have pictures of my basketball team and programs from our college tournaments and a piece of the net from when we won league... I'm getting off-track here, but the point is that I have this entire year of my life (at Occidental) that is now being treated as if it never happened, and whenever I recall that year, I just don't know what to do with it. I still talk to Molly and Halbe regularly, and I'm still in and out of touch with everyone else, but it's so strange to me to think that my friends at Wesleyan never saw that side of me - the weight-lifting, injury-prone (I was always at the trainer's getting ice packs and massages for my lower back, right knee, left ankle, and left hamstring) jock who would go to dinner after 3 hours of practice and lifting, with ice wraps both legs and an ice wrap on her right shoulder, who drank hard 4 or 5 nights a week. When everyone goes to college, we all accept the fact that we'll never understand our peers' pasts entirely. But it's still hard to get over the fact that there have been two very distinct incarnations of College Amy, and that they are so incredibly different from one another. That's one of the big reasons why I have trouble coming home. At the dentist's the other day, I got questions from EVERYONE about sports and blah blah did I know that the girls that play for PG High still talk about me and want to be like me. I found a letter in the box from this little girl who was in fifth grade when I was a senior - it was fanmail. She had taken a picture of me signing her an autograph after a game, and had made a photocopy of it to give to me, and had written me three pages about how she wanted to play just like me when she got to high school. Every time my mom comes home she tells me that she ran into another person asking about my basketball. I'm not trying to show off the accolades I earned 3 years ago (if I wanted to do that, you'd have to see the 48 trophies, ribbons, medals, and plaques in my closet), but I guess the point is that while my Wes friends understand that yes, I used to play sports, I don’t know if everyone knows just how intense it was, and how intense I was about it.
Anyway.
  ¶ 23:56

  I was flying down my favorite hill today, blasting old Pumpkins tapes I had found under my bed, left hand stretching out the window, fingers cutting through the air, sunglasses on, imagining myself soaring over a dip in the road in this little old Honda just like they do in the movies. I coasted into Old Monterey, jumping the gun on green lights and swooping through red ones, plowing through stop signs when it wasn't my turn, smiling at everyone I cut off. I kept my window down driving on the highway past the sand dunes, enjoying the "tick-tick-tick" sound of the sand scattering across the car doors, laughing out loud when I saw the sea, wind-swept and silver like the scales of a salmon, and then I turned my gaze to the other side of the road and watched all of the metalworks and warehouses blur by, sad but familiar, and life was good.

Hey, I'm happy.

I talked to Yaron this morning, and he explained it all to me, because he is brilliant (imagine Dar Williams saying it). Simply: I'm bored. He's bored. We're both pining and whining and moping and just plain anxious simply because we have nothing better to do. Duh. Still, it's nice know that someone can even be bored in New York City.

I actually started working on my (loooong) overdue curriculum. I've made contact with some non-profits in New Haven, and I got some materials at the bookstore today. I had asked David a little while ago why it took him so long to start on his thesis, and he said it was because he couldn't accept the fact that he was passionate about a topic different from what he thought would be "respectable" to write about. I totally understand how he feels, given my own academic conundrums, but I need to make sure that in all of my bursts of passion I don't forget that there are other things that I love to learn about, and teach to others.

I wasn't excited about this summer until yesterday, when I pulled out this year's promotional materials, and saw the pictures of old friends and students and the campus and the classrooms. I went back and read the emails I had received from my former students over the course of this year. I recalled the feeling of teaching, regardless of what the subject may ever have been, and how I had picked up a class during second session when it needed an instructor, and how I had stayed up for hours drafting curriculum after curriculum for those students, consulted my superiors and fellow teachers, and how I couldn't even properly articulate how amazing the teaching experience had been to Bill when we stood in the mailroom with a knowing smile and he asked me how everything was going.

My dog and I have been having some excellent conversations lately, too. What could be better?  ¶ 20:09