22 January 2004, 4:45 p.m.

In which we type out a boring newsy entry

back & forth

On the silver dry-erase board ECG gave me, the One Thing I Had to Do Friday was "Get to Philadelphia". Mission accomplished! I spent the weekend at the Amherst Early Music Winter Weekend Workshop, mostly playing continuo for Artist Number 42, who is probably the greatest virtuosa of the recorder currently performing. She liked my playing, and said that I sometimes play "too Calvinistically," which tickled my fancy. I also got to play with one of these amazing things -- if Eeyore were in a Monteverdi opera...

Philly is not Boston. People smile there, and they aren't afraid to start conversations with one. This creates the illusion that it's a wonderful place to live. Perhaps, perhaps -- I have my long-term plans to consider. Seeing friends, of both musical and non-musical varieties, was another highlight of the trip.

On the way back up from Philly, I spent time with MB in NYC, drinking four carafes of white wine with BB at the C*tt*g* and then making omelettes of curried peas in the morning.

Currently finished reading: Queer Street: incomprehensible but worthwhile, particularly the free-association checklist of mid-twentieth-century Gay New York culture. The Women, by Hilton Als: a careful examination of the writer's mother, and what it means to be a woman of colour and what it means to suffer and all sorts of other things. It's an awkward book, which starts out as a memoir, and then dips through biographies until it resolves itself. Diana of the Crossways, although a George Meredith novel, is a bit of a disappointment. Perhaps I should give the second half more attention.

Current surprise: Finding my old best friend and prom-date CS on Friendster -- actually, she found me.