the last two days i've supposedly been working on my papers, but i've spent more time with my friends. i tell myself that it's worth it, because i'm usually really isolated. and when i'm with people and actually enjoying myself, i think the benefits are worth the lost time. my life has become so bizarre; being around people makes me feel more normal. healing is more important than getting my work done right away. right?

also, today i rode virginia's bike all over the place, another activity that i justify because it makes me feel good. i miss having a bike. i rode through downtown, past all the places i used to deliver to when i did bike delivery last summer. when i had that job i knew downtown minneapolis better than any other 1 square mile area of land-- a strange skill to be carrying around with me, especially since i don't really live here. i still remember most of it.

then i rode to uptown to meet gabe & friends at a thai restaurant. i talked to m for a long time while we waited for the others. she goes to college in new york and is very stylish. (she's "home" for the summer like me). she said, "yeah, i like heroin. i did it for a week once, with these people who were staying with me. maybe i'll do it again. it's so boring here, there's nothing to do except drugs." i was like, "no! don't ever do it again!" (�you can do it if you want to-- you can do it if you want to be like me� -elliot smith. that line gives me chills).

she kept saying stuff like "drinking isn't fun anymore because we aren't in high school and there's none of that hiding the bottle from your parents." or "i'm bored with sex, i liked it better when i wasn't supposed to be doing it." i�m exactly the same. i always lose interest in things when they become safe and normal. i love doing things i'm not supposed to do. i love doing things for the first time, when it feels new. i love sight-reading music and taking intro courses (in college, i've taken the "101" class in art history, anthropology, spanish, greek, linguistics, philosophy, and logic) but after it becomes routine it's not as exciting. no wonder i'm always changing my mind about what i want to do.

if i could find something that always felt new and startling, something i was supposed to do that felt like something i wasn't supposed to do...

there's this summer music festival here, and tonight my mom and i went to a free concert of beethoven's 1st piano concerto and 5th symphony. we got 2nd row seats. i spent the last part of the concert developing a crush on one of the second violins, in the back row. when the music got to a loud exciting part, he would smile and play his violin like it was the most fun he'd ever had, bowing wildly up and down across the strings, eyes shining. but what i liked was that he was smiling; no one else smiled. when i played harp in orchestra i played like that too. i'd always get really elated and smile a lot when the music went fast and galloping.

i was thinking, what would my life be like if i'd followed my father's advice and gone to music school to become a concert harpist. do orchestra musicians do drugs? i doubt it. would i have gotten restless and dropped out? maybe. stephen hawking says we are in this universe because it is the most probable (rather than other parallel but less probable universes). that's why i like doing really improbable, unexpected things. my motto: "making the improbable probable." going to music school was never something i actually thought i'd do. what if i had just done it anyway and it became reality?
(hawking-- the wave function of the universe)