Another nothing day. After stressing for the last week about the piece I have to write, today I finally bit the bullet. And no, I didn't start writing. I e-mailed the professor and told him I'd rather take the exam option instead of the composition option. I feel like a damn wiener. Taking the easy way out. But I also feel a great weight lifted from my shoulders. At least, if I bungle the test, the whole class won't be watching like they'd have been watching the performance of my shitty 12-tone piece.

I left the house this afternoon at 4, to go to a recital at school. The two tuba players giving the recital were both in the class that I taught last year, and we really bonded on the trip to DC last January. It was a fun recital. I'm so proud of my tuba friends here. At Michigan, I was proud, but in a competitive sort of way. An "I'm glad I know this guy, and I'm really glad he's my friend and not my enemy, and, oh yeah, what a great recital, and I hope mine is just as good" sort of proud. Here, most of my friends are at least a couple years younger than I, and I've watched them grow as players. And I'm so giggly-proud of all of them. I'm really going to miss the people here.

My mom even mentioned that I seemed to like my friends here a lot more than my friends in Ann Arbor. That's serious...I never really share feelings with my mom, so I must be showing. I know that I've been happier here. I had great friends at UM, I thought I'd never find such great friends anywhere ever again. My friends in East Lansing are fewer, I see them less often, but I am myself with them. Hope all those great drinking buddies in Ann Arbor aren't finding me here. Hey, look. I haven't heard from a one of them in over a year. Write me and we'll talk.

Actually, if someone from my past did contact me, I think we'd get on well enough. I'd definitely love to hear from them. (hint.) I'm so much more mature now; I don't expect my friends to adore me, to heroically defend me, or to spend each and every night chattering with me until I feel like falling asleep. Looking back, I would have not liked me much when I was 18, 19...20 even. I was ever so insecure, but I played butch. I was a blast at parties. My poor best friend had to stay up until 4 or so every morning BSing with me. I never let him sleep. And I pouted, and I was jealous, oh, god. What a great friend.

I never really had friends before I went to college. No, I wasn't a creepy-weirdo-loner chick with gun dreams. I just didn't like my high school friends much. I had one friend, Manda, with whom I'd go out and do silly things, like dive into snowdrifts, or bury ourselves in the bean-bag pits at Meijer. The rest of the kids we hung out with were smokers, partiers, and I hadn't yet discovered my own party thing yet. Manda and I still e-mail; as a matter of fact, if my wedding really happens she will be my maid of honor. (can't say that word without shuddering.) I made friends each summer at music camps, knowing that 2 or 5 or 8 weeks later, I'd likely never see those people again.

So when I got to college, I had weird expectations. I didn't expect to like my fellow low brass players. I thought I'd have a superficial-but-friendly relationship with my roommate. That prediction came true, at least--we had a short-lived drinking buddy status until we met people in our respective departments. But then I bonded like crazy with tuba and euph players. We surged, we loved, we fizzled.

I started to say, just now, that there was no substance beneath our friendships. That's not true. When things started to go wrong, we all were hurt, angry, and we refused to share our hurt. We went our separate ways instead. But I feel like we could come back, and I suspect the others feel the same. I've run into a few of them, and we do that "Hey, how are you??" thing where we don't ever mention the old things, but we remember them. And when we walk away, we whisper to our new friends, "my old roommate from Michigan. Never see her anymore." But we never go out for a beer. (Half of us have stopped drinking.) We never reminisce. I never find out what happened to Brandon after I moved, where's Grant? Brian? How's Brad doing?

All this remembering is wigging me out. Maybe I'll go look up names in the online phone books for a while.

Hey, that's another thing. Two, three years ago I never would have taken the first step--I'd have waited for them to reach out to me. Look at me, all mature and shit.