with Fortune on our side and with a wonderful turn of the tide, we were released from our imprisonment 8 hours early and with that, i walked outside into the sunlight, a free man. (WOMAN! WOMAN! i'm a woman, in case you couldn't tell from looking at me). free! free! it seems like eons since i've had an entire day to myself (especially because the last few days i've been sleeping in until the late afternoon, or at least, dropping in and out of mini cat-naps between eating and pawing around). so decided to leisurely walk to my workout (where i did half an out of brisk walking on a really high incline - usually i run, but this trainer on extreme make-over said that instead of running, if you really want to burn calories, you should do something that gives you a slow buuurn, like walking for long durations). did you notice all of my sentences are ending with parentheses?

i went to pick up a ridiculously expensive pair of jeans (IT'S A PRESENT TO MYSELF FOR GETTING THROUGH YEAR 2!!!! I'M NOT RETURNING THEM!!! - this is a message aimed at my mom, who is probably fainting right now)(she knows the value of a hard-earned dollar), and then spent even more money at the Madrigal, which is a classical record shoppe on richmond.

i don't like happy classical music. i an absolutely obsessed with listening to sad, langorous melodies, heartwrenching, painstaking sonatas, achingly beautiful cellos...no russian dances for me. no rimsky-korsakoff. brahms, please. rachmaninoff, please. chopin, please. scriabin, please. beethoven, please. mahler, please. bruckner, please. no handel! no gluck! i do quite like bach, however, he addresses my emotico-practical side...

in any case, i'm trying to get away from being such a glenn gould-centered fan (i have everything glenn gould)(i even know that glenn ate ketchup and arrowroot cookies, which, according to a recent study, may have alarmingly high levels of bis-acrylamate in them), and i'm branching out, listening to other artists. the madrigal owner was telling me which recordings were great, and even told me how many copies of each he had sold. he even offered his opinion on certain collections, and i love it when store owners do that, because i love it when store owners love the stuff they sell. so, i picked up ravel's complete piano works, performed by louis lortie (i didn't think he was that great, because i picked up his chopin etude recordings a few years ago and wasn't terribly impressed), but this recording of ravel's works are incredible. the sound is incredible too. the glory of the compact disc; i bow to you.

i also picked up some brahms violin sonatas. beautiful. my piano teacher told me, more than 10 years ago, that brahms is someone you listen to, or want to listen to, when you've become more emotionally mature. it's true, i didn't like brahms 10 years ago. i was infatuated with the tempestuous stormy stacked chords of chopin, the one and only, and anything that had a tremendous cadenza, a la chopin, once again. Brahms started to mean something to me when i listened, a few years ago, to the german requiem. he wrote it for his mother. i studied it at the conservatory a decade ago, didn't appreciate it, but when i heard it several years later, it was as if i understood why it was so beautiful. i can't say that i like the violin sonatas as much as the cello and piano sonatas (i prefer the lower tenor of the cello, and if you can get your hands on the ofra harnoy recording, so much the better)(i bought the rubenstein recording, and i was SO mad. incredibly disappointed. harnoy's interpretation is MUCH more satisfying), but familiarity allows things to grow on you.

the last thing i picked up was the complete La Boheme, by Puccini. I've been meaning to get this for at least 4 years now, ever since i saw a production during my second year of undergrad by the COC. this opera too, i studied while at the conservatory, but it didn't mean anything to me then. i didn't like opera back then, it was just an additional song-dramatic art form that i had to study; more names to memorize, more things to listen to, voices that spoke another language and didn't make much sense to me. but when i saw the opera (i was older. age, i think, has a lot to do with this), i was moved to tears. this is unrelated, but one of the most stunning operatic duets/arias i've ever heard is Voila ville...from Louise, by Leoncavallo (i think it's him). just amazing.

i spent the whole day, after i got back from my shopping, listening to my purchases, and re-listening. and reading. i finally got my hands on that book that Drs. Linda and Michael Hutcheon published just recently (they sent me a copy! that was exciting. it's called Opera: The Art of Dying) - and....they even thanked me in their acknowledgements! that was cool. it's a great book. even if you don't like opera, or have never seen one. books at the portal to an entirely new life, field, subject....i read the introduction and the first chapter, and the section that i did some of the research on, the section on the undead, water spirits (undine), the makropoulous affair, Janacek, Edgar Allan Poe...it's really neat seeing all the ideas developed and put together. how neat is that. i want to be in print too. i often wonder what would have happened if i had switched into English (i seriously did consider that at one time). would i be a scholar? would i be a literary critic? an author? a theorist? a editor? maybe Fate would play me and somehow i would end up writing instruction manuals for endodontic rotary motors. whew, irony.

well, tomorrow marks the first full day of assisting, i think. and a major rumble at a chinese buffet, if everything works in our favor...

nite.