The ability of music to trigger vivid memories is so well accepted as to be a truism, but this does not make it any less potent. I'm melancholy tonight after casual mention of a song on #husi jammed it into my head, where it has seemingly braced itself against my cranium walls in an effort to avoid removal. Music seems to have the power to provoke feelings long removed from the context that created them; orphan feelings existing without sane causes. It helps us remember, so damning when the struggle is to forget. I shouldn't be so delicate. I have been beaten around by a song.

I feel delicate for other reasons too, lately. Moving is such a painful ordeal. People recommend leaving as much as possible, and this seems wise enough -- the chance for a new start is rare, and not to be squandered. Forcing yourself to remove things -- even petty material ones -- from your life forces a person to take stock, though. If accumulating this isn't what I've accomplished, then what is? What have I done? Have I progressed? Is my situation now better than it was before? I'm financially down from birth, and probably a bit more emotionally confused than I was when I started life. I have the bulk of a degree, for whatever that's worth. I have some friends here, but few I'll miss. There are good memories, but bad ones too. It would be nice if life had a clearer sense of progress to it, or rather, a sense of progress toward something other than death.

Throwing out books is a special pain of its own. I was once told that "books make the best furniture". Throwing out cheap cookware is easy, but getting rid of books -- even when they're off to a good home -- is ripping out a piece of my soul. They'll never love them like I did. Yes, even the ones I didn't get around to reading. Fuck, especially those ones. They had all the promise in the world; the potential to be incredible. To be surrounded by books is to be comfortable. I love everything about them. It seems like most of the people I like best share this affection, and it's comforting sometimes to know that I am not alone in it.

Received a call from my sister tonight, telling me that my mother was upset and that it was my fault. I called her and eventually smoothed things over, but this is but one rippple on a bigger wave. (A local maximum, to put that math minor to some use.) She says that I attack her; that I am vicious in mocking her mistakes; that I act bitterly toward her. She doesn't think I treat her fairly. I know she's right. I am still emotionally broken in some ways, although not without understandable cause, and young Jewish men having mother issues isn't exactly uncommon. It's painful to see in myself such a vicious streak toward someone who treats me so kindly. (My favorite scene in Hamlet is the hallway scene, in which Hamlet mercilessly attacks Ophelia, and she replies with only honesty, love and concern. It's the scene that redeems her, an otherwise kind of ditzy manipulated character. Ophelia is pure in a way that no one else in the play is, and it is this purity that makes her beautiful.)

My tea is done. Back to packing.