Wherein the diarist complains that she needs a swift kick to the rear.

I have figured out why I am waking up an hour earlier than normal, and it has nothing to do with the grandfather clock, although its chiming just informs me what hour it really is. No, there is renewed construction happening at the end of our street and the trucks start moving up and down at an ungodly hour, when it is still dark out I�m sure, empty dump trucks driving up the street, full ones driving down. They change gears, their tail gates swing and clang, and I sincerely hate them as only someone not getting enough sleep can. Grrr.

For my second paragraph, I have been particularly slothful today, accomplishing nothing productive besides a clean load of laundry (darks). Here I am blessed with a Friday of pristine proportions, a tabula rasa if you will, wherein I could be writing, doing Latin homework, practising (after all my haranguing about my students not practising enough), exercising, or any number of things that need doing, like the laying and cutting out of a dress I�ve had the fabric for for three years now, and putting ingredients in the breadmaker so it can make bread. You see what I mean? Without direction, I just fall apart.

This evening I am off to a recital, which I am dreading, more out of obligation and a sense of duty than because I want to hear Der Hirt auf dem FeIsen massacred. My friend Vlad, of whom I have complained more often than I care to count, is performing tonight with a pianist and a violinist in her capacities as both a pianist and a singer an all-Schubert programme. There will be piano 4-hands music as well as Lieder and a violin sonata. The Shepherd 0n the R0ck is in a version for violin instead of clarinet, which will be interesting. The problem is that Vlad is not a very good singer, and really only a marginally better pianist. She�s one of those people who are better at describing what they want and coaching others than in actually producing the desired results themselves. She and I gave a recital several years back where we traveled to M0ntreal beforehand a couple of times to be coached by her mentor. He was fantastic, giving her advice on how to deal with particular passages, but she somehow never did it the way he told her. Anyway, I�ll probably write that one up tomorrow. Maybe she�ll surprise me and actually be good.

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