january 22, 2002
everyone i see, they are all so young. taller and much bigger than me, but so very very small all the same. i often wonder if these are the ones i want to be living with, if these are the people who will go home each day carrying a little package from me. it's like billy taylor talking to us from behind the piano in our rehearsal room. we are so young, and although we could pick mr. taylor up and run around with him on our shoulders if we wanted, we have seen so very little compared to the things he has experienced. how could we see bird through eyes that first opened when everybody liked disco dancing? and how could we feel the ideas of all the great ones beyond those captured on recordings? maybe there is something far deeper than the formalities and red tape associated with education, and something more important than the curriculum and the lesson plans and all the other pointless junk the school of education has been trying so long to force down my throat.
the simple act of lending your eyes to another person, telling them your stories, showing them something that they might not have seen just yet...yes, that is what this is all about. i am here to be somebody's billy taylor, even though i can't play -anything- as well as he can, or somebody's frank, even though i'm by far not as cool as he was. these plans and meetings make me nervous, make me blind to what is sitting right in front of me each day. they are so young, and so am i, and we're here to lend each other our eyes.

january 17, 2002...[huge, gargantuan, bigbigbig recommendation of the day]
please check out norah jones!
i have been meaning to write about her...it seems everything her voice touches turns into something peaceful and calm and unbelievably beautiful. you just woudln't believe it...so go to her website and grab yourself one of her recordings!!

january 17, 2002
i met your words before i saw your face...how strange, a note from a stranger!
i talked all night to you, a poet with deep eyes and slender fingers.
the music played through my head, never stopping, as it always has done,
and peace settled around my shoulders, still remaining, as if it had never been gone.

january 7, 2002
today finds me a very different person than i was this time last year. i spoke of running, pounding my feet on the ground, going far, and i did. but while i was going it started to rain, and the ground under my feet turned all to mud, cold slick stuff to slide around and fall into, and i did. so today i stand here filthy, with dirt under my nails and mud crusted all in my hair, and wanting nothing more than to settle into a nice warm bath for a while. but there can be no settling down for a person who can barely even sit still through a class or a thirty-minute tv show..so i'm left not knowing just what to do at all.
like i was warned a few months ago, someone did come and tell me "how it really is". they told me every day as the people i love left me behind, as i had my hands tied behind my back while my dreams drifted out of reach, as everything i knew was stripped away, little by little until it was gone and i was alone.
but i'm still not listening. i'll never listen..it's something i'm famous for. even when i was a little kid, i was stubborn as a brick just like i am now. and bricks can get rained on forever and still stay the same. i am a runner, ready to go in my slightly-less-than-new red and blue adidas. in time may my feet find their way far, far, far away from here.