22:05 - October 15, 2002
the hippie's guitar and the SW piano
I whistle softly when I walk by people's rooms so I don't accidentally give them a heart attack or run into them around any corners. I have had enough walking into men's bathrooms for my embarrassment quotient of the decade. I almost broke the guitar of the hippie in the corner room by forgetting to whistle as I walked by, so we collided. His guitar twanged, a string snapped off its hook. His lower lip slowly pushed farther and farther out, his brown eyes more and more puppylike, so I fixed it for him after telling him not to give me that fucking doggy look. He obeyed, sitting on the bed as I looped the string back where it belonged; even tuned the whole guitar back up for him so the intervals were perfect. I've heard him play outside on the smokers' bench. His guitar's intervals haven't been perfect in a very, very long time, or maybe he means it to be that way. When he picked the instrument up again and strummed a few chords, he looked bewildered.

I am getting weirder.
It's either a result of my suitemates' constant blaring of J.Lo, Nelly, and Celine Dion, in that order, or a response to my roommate, who literally thinks I need a straitjacket. Feed into it; why not? Perch by the water sprinkler and stare at her in her sleep for awhile. Actually, it's in a different way that I do it. The 'zombie look' scares her, as does most of my music. All it takes is a little Squarepusher at mid-volume and me sitting in the centre of the rug with pastels spread all over, drawing a picture of an geometric octopus and smudging my fingers in the wash of colour. She thinks it's disgusting that I would get my hands that dirty. I totally wish she was roomies with a visual arts major. Oooh, or an environmental science major. 'Don't smoke in the room, Ashley! Stop spraying that ozone-destroying hairspray, Ashley!' Hahahahahaha.

I was playing the piano in the lobby of Stearns West tonight because I don't like to do it in my own building. People there hate musicians, or so it seems, which may be part of the reason I do it there; they come off the elevator, roll their eyes, snicker to their friends about that 'weird girl who's always playing that weird music' ('and i know she doesn't even LIVE here!'), and rush out the side door. Once Andrew and Chris ventured from the confines of their room to get nourishment, and when they got downstairs they began doing an exaggerated swooping waltz around the lobby, twirling each other and making prissy faces. I love those guys. However, tonight they stayed in their room, and instead of the waltz, I saw Creepy Steve, who I haven't seen at all since at least a month ago. He has drifted apart from my roommates and his roommates, or so it seems, or else he got kicked out of the dorms for being creepy, or else he became antisocial and stayed in his room all the time plotting to take out the entirety of Will Vill with a machine gun... but either way he's suddenly in the lobby of Stearns West, staring at me over the top of the piano for a split second. The green gold flashes. I will never get over his eyes. 'The pianist...' he mutters, and looks down, and then hurries away.

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