mezzo_forte epitome of incomprehensibility What raze wrote on weird_confessions reminded me of my first degree at Concordia, when I took music as a minor (insert pun here). My partner for the second ear training class was a poet named Lydia. She was about 40 to my 20, but we became friends. The soundproof practice rooms were tiny, with thick glass windows in the doors. No other windows. I thought they looked like something in a retro space movie, something you could call a capsule or module or pod. Only those wouldn't have black fold-out chairs, an electric piano, and a music stand. I'd perch the thick spiral-bound book of sight singing exercises on the stand, if we were sharing it. Our class called it "the Berkowitz book" after one of its authors - a last name I'd nab for a set of characters years later. At one point, Lydia pointed to the letters "mf" on the sheet and said something like, "I don't mean to be rude, but those letters always make me think of 'motherfucker.'" They reminded me of a book by Anthony Burgess, because I'd recently looked at a list of his works. Did THAT stand for motherfucker? Or mezzo-forte? But I couldn't bring my veering-off thoughts into this - she'd think me weird. So instead I went, "Mezzo-forte, motherfucker!" She repeated that, forte to my mezzo-forte, and we laughed and laughed. Good thing the rooms were soundproof. 220609 ... e_o_i I saw Lydia again a couple of years ago, in Concordia's library. I think she was using the computer because it had a program she didn't have at home. She had grey in her hair and photos of her paintings on the screen. I was impressed. For some reason I didn't think she'd be as good a painter as she was. Why though? Did I harbour some resentment for the last time I saw her, at a poetry event in 2015, because she gave me dating advice I didn't want? (me, still unhappy about the way things had ended with NB from Burundi). Here she was perfectly nice and I should have given her my new phone number. 220609 ... e_o_i (Or was that 2016? I just think everything between my Ontario sojourn and starting my new novel happened in 2015, don't I?) 220609 what's it to you? who go blather from