"Oh wow, your instrument is still in tune, Jonathan."
"Yeah, I actually got my violin out this summer and practiced it! ...once."
"Ha, well you're one up on the rest of my students."
I spent most of the summer getting high, and when I wasn't high, I was pretty trashed. I got some pretty good ideas while I was out, though.
Let me explain. For thirteen weeks, the violin lay in its case, save the intermittent lesson or two. The sun rose and set, and rose again, stringing together rows upon glittering rows of tangerine days. Everyone in the far north rejoiced that the sunshine had returned after its three year sabattical. We grew tan. We grew tall. We grew great big smiles on our faces, like slices of watermelon rind.
When I said I was taking the summer off, I mean I took off. After 92,425 feet of vertical gain, 610 miles, and a dozen or so tumbles, I arrived at the first week of the fall semester exhausted, bedraggled, thick-muscled, and feeling strangely more alive than I had in a long time.
Yeah, overall, I'd say I got some pretty good ideas while I was out.
More entries: September 2009 June 2009
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