it's painted on both sides.

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dateline: oZ concert hall

24 august 1996 8:17 p.m.

I love to dance. Most of the time, just for myself. Often, by myself. It's almost involuntary, with some songs. Just now it was some of the tracks on the "Hackers" soundtrack. I stretch out my aching (and snapping!) knees, wander and sway in front of my huge box fan, circling in my closet of a "living room." I play the song over and over again (track eleven, I can't find the case). Then I go looking for other stuff that fits whatever feeling I've hit on. Tonight, floating, pensive -- like meditating to a beat. I've pulled my dusty "Moodswings" disc, Vanessa Daou, the "Deep Forest" albums (so sue me, I like both). I don't write nearly enough about music. It's always with me. I sometimes forget to take my purse when I run out, but rarely do I forget Mr. Discman. I used to take piano lessons. I barely remember a thing, except that I hated them worse than cucumbers (pushed into it too young, a common parental error). Yet, I remember being fascinated by how I could follow the little tailed notes up and down on the music page while my teacher played. In a way -- I now realize, thinking -- I never made the connection that my music teacher was following the notes. I thought it was the other way around. I tricked myself into imagining that whenever my teacher hit a high note, the "pollywog" on paper would leap, breaking out of the five ever-present staff lines onto an invisible higher line. An undrawn line that the note somehow knew would appear -- just suddenly be there -- when it jumped. I know, I'm weird. (Short break for "Freedom Cry" -- Korg meets Bulgarian gipsies.) Anyway, I can easily be moved by music. I guess I often feel like a musical pollywog. A little sixteenth-note, carrying a little wavy flag, running along with the song. And when the song crests, or crashes, or leaps over the bottomless cavern of a whole-rest, my heart can skip a beat. I often break into tears right in the middle of that delicious silence, that almost terrifying pause, right before the booming, final rich chord of a symphony. It's like I've taken a leap of faith with the composer -- I have to trust him, and trust that the climax, the triumphant ending, is really there. Not that I'm a classical nut. In fact, I think that's probably my weakest area. All music says something to me, hypnotizes me in a different way. I love Giuseppe Verdi's "Requiem," but I also like Fish Karma's "She Likes to Make Love to Led Zeppelin." The message in a song can be as varied -- as enlightening or flippant -- as a spoken sentence. As I do a debate, chat or joke, I crave any chance to have a conversation with music. Like cheese? "See the 80psi Cheeze Snack Delivery System in action!" (The coolest use of QuickTime I've seen so far!) Classes start on Monday. I'm not ready. I forgot to mention that when I went to the bookstore, I just went to look at the books I need. I don't know if I'm keeping the classes I signed up for, first of all, and I can't afford the books either. Wayne showed me a psychology textbook he bought. It was about three inches thick, softcover, published two months ago, and cost $64. I have no doubt in other classes students are being forced to buy even more expensive texts. I have no doubt there are books that cost more than the class itself. Maybe they'll have what I need at Border's. They were saying on the news yesterday that the tuition hike at the University of Hawaii this year (coupled with the stupid early payment deadline) probably squeezed anywhere from 800 to 2,000 would-be continuing students out of upper education (or at least into community colleges). It's sick. Just how big a difference in our future salaries does a college degree make? Am I going to end up paying more than that difference in tuition? The answer, of course, depends on the job, person and employer. But who knows what a UH degree is worth these days? Fifteen years ago, classes cost a fraction of what they do now (that's right, my fellow UH victims, a full-time courseload cost $352 in 1984). And you know what? I think students back then were getting a better education than I am now. Maybe I'm just sore that I'll have to start waking up at 7 a.m. again. Dammit, Jay (of "Ramblings" fame) has gone and started something. Got e-mail from Gerry Manacsa today with something else to put on my Leo-ego stroking page. Maybe the line from that cheesy (no pun intended) Kevin Costner film is true.