The winds of fate seem to have decided that I'll be around Rochester for many moons to come

Firstly, I was unprepared for my Fredonia audition & consequently wasn't invited into the music school there. Add to this that my apartment lease is up in June. What this means is that I'll have to sign a year-long lease, and those are usually difficult to break out of. To top it all off, I still owe RG&E over $1000 from the Linden St. debacle, which means I either live in a place that includes utilities or I'll be living by candle-light. So my choices are:
• get a studio apartment in my current building,
• re-new the lease with Kirk at B-18, or
• Try to find another place to rent with Kirk or another room-mate

In any event, it looks as though I'll be in Rochester for another year no matter what I may actually want to do. Thankfully, I hate moving & don't really feel like re-locating at this point. When the next lease is up I'll take another look at things. I'll definitely have a better idea of how things will go with Tatiana. There are only a couple things that are preventing me from really considering this a sure bet, and neither of them are necessarily the end of the world. The first is the religion factor, which is something that'll have to be worked out between the two of us, and I suspect we can iron it out fine. The other is whether or not her family will try to can the relationship when the finally find out about us, and more importantly, whether Tatiana will let them. She's understandably not thrilled with causing a big stink by going against them. Nobody ever said life is always easy or pleasant, and the costs of independence aren't always cheap. That said, I can tell her family cares about her, and I don't really think they'd dis-own her for asserting herself & doing what she wants with her life. It's not as though she's thinking of leaving the church, or snorting coke or becoming a hooker. We're talking about dating someone who's not orthodox & who's a few years older... not a big deal when you take it in perspective. Ah well... these things will take time to work out, but they'll both have to be dealt with eventually... it's only a matter of time. If we can work it out, I'll have even higher hopes for the long run.

As for the audition, well that was interesting. I didn't have anything prepared and I actually tried to cancel it. I didn't receive any confirmation from the professor so I thought it best to just go do it, rather than have him think I blew it off. It turns out that he got the email but just didn't answer it. So I played what little I could for him, and naturally blew it. He could've thrown me out of his office for wasting his time, but instead he talked to me for a good 15 minutes or so. He dispensed lots of sage advice, about what it takes to study music at the college level, and quickly and bluntly assessed my abilities. He determined immediately that I have "innate musical talent," but I don't practice or work hard enough. He informed me that if I wasn't willing to dedicate 2 hours a day to bass then I might think about another line of work. He encouraged me to audition again in the fall, which I may or may not do, depending on how tied I am to Rochester, financially & socially. It was far from a wasted trip to be sure.

Tatiana also auditioned & seems to have done very well. The piano professor couldn't give her the official word, but it sounds like she'll be accepted. It still looks as though she'll go to Geneseo, which won't exactly be the end of the world. After the auditions, we went with her friend Tim to Applebee's, and thence to bowling. It was fun, although Tatiana & I were in "just friends" mode around Tim, as her folks could find out about us through him. What a drag. It was well-balanced by watching Tatiana bowl, as she looked very alluring in her jeans while bowling... yowza. After going out on the town in greater Fredonia, the woman & I changed back into dressier clothes & headed to Buffalo for church. We got tagged by a state pig in I-90 between Fredonia & Buffalo... not so good. The cop managed to pull us both over, and ticked us both too. This was pretty upsetting to Tatiana, who wasn't able to turn on the water works until after the pig gave her the ticket. She got 79 in a 65 & I got 83 in a 65... that'll cost some bucks.

After church, which was almost groovy, since the service was all in english, we went to th pancake house for dinner (although we ate breakfast food), and then went to starbucks. Shortly there-after she started to poop out & went to her brother's pad in Buff. I drove back home & man it was a damn fine day.

Guess that's about it from here... I've got the week off from MCC, so I have a mixture of relaxation & stuff to do. Time to wrap up the laundry so I can sit on my ass some more.

And practice bass.