My sister is right. She always is. She did a good thing in saying she doesn't like to be around me when I'm feeling sorry for myself. As much as that hurt when she said is this afternoon, when I was curled up in a little ball on my bed, sobbing about my own poor misfortune, she was right.

Anyway, so she tells me that my mom can't take Saturday off, whereas my dad can- you know, to plan the usual transfer of yours truly, the piece of luggage. So then I get all in a tiff, wailing about my mom's stupidity, and wondering how she could think I could possibly want to stay here and do nothing except sleep till noon, spend hours on the computer and wash the dishes. As fulfulling an existence (notice I said "existence" and not "life") as that truly is, I'm getting a little sick of it. There may not be much of a reason for me to be home, but there's sure as hell no reason for me to be here. So there's a new music store downtown. Whoopee! They sell pianos. Not flutes. Nor would they want someone to teach flute lessons. If none of the music stores at home were hiring, why would this one be? There are no jobs here. There is nothing here. As much as it embarasses me to ride the bus at home, at least there is a bus line! There are means of getting from place to place. Not here. Anyway, my mood spiralled downward at that point. Why would she want to keep me here? How is she justified in keeping my sister here anyway? Blah blah blah.

Then my mom gets home from work. She comes in, sees I'm not online so she can use the phone, and asks me what's wrong. Nothing, I say.

She needs to use the phone so she can call my aunt. My aunt has a brain tumor. Not a cyst, as the rest of the family has been told, mostly in order to protect my grandmother, who has a weak heart and can't take shocks well. A brain tumor, and she's leaving for Nashville this week for brain surgery. You know, brain surgery sounds so silly until it's going to happen to someone you know. "Do your homework!" "It's too hard!" "Come on, it's algebra, not brain surgery."

Cue loads of guilt and other feelings of general evilness. I realize it's entirely ridiculous to feel like that. Like my being a whiny baby who just wants to go home to a whole lotta nothing has anything to do with my aunt needing brain surgery. Excuse all the thinking out loud right now. It helps. It just helps.

So my sister drew a picture of a green horse on the computer. You know, a horse of a different color. And I laughed. I picked up my flute. I played the minuet from the "L'arlesienne" suite mostly to help my sister, who is practicing it now for school (yes she plays flute too- are you actually surprised?). I made up a story for her. I told her to play it wistfully, dreamily. Like a girl who is sitting at a window, looking up at the moon and the stars, and singing a lullaby to the one she loves who is far away. Simple and stupid, perhaps,, but I like to think of pictures I can paint with my music. Pictures leading into words leading into reasons why leading to magic solutions to just make it all better, somehow. I picked up the "Carmen" Fantasy (what is it about Bizet tonight?), my favorite show-offy piece, and angrily slapped the notes around through the air through the flute. I picked up my piccolo and played some Baroque stuff like a robot. But like a very loud and very un-Baroque robot. I thought maybe I could make it all go away. The music would take all the bad things to a paper shredder and then that paper would be recycled and somehow be put back into the shape of a big beautiful tree. Like the big trees that were around my grandmother's house before her heart became weak.

It will all be fine, right? Part of me is that incurable optimist. Vanderbilt has an excellent hospital and my aunt will be fine. And of much less importance, if I don't go home this weekend it won't really matter. Nothing from nothing makes nothing. Years of math homework taught me that.

I just want a hug. Or maybe I'm sitting here typing all this just to hear the sound of my fingers hitting the keys. So there's no eerie silence in which I have too much time to think. It doesn't matter if I'm silly or stupid or bad or childish or whiny or pitiful or helpless or stupid again. If it's just not quiet in here the sounds, the music, the anything, will make it all better. Like a lullaby. A lullaby with the hint of a hug for a silly, stupid, stupid girl.

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