Meet Amanda and Duncan. You'll find them in this week's style section, which I admittedly glean on occasion to compare the couples' ages to my own. There is usually a strong crowd of thirtysomethings, and fewer and fewer young chickens, which is reassuring. (Amanda in the picture is 33. Duncan is a yucky 46.)

Anyway, this is lovely portrait of a good looking couple. Besides the fact that she is a fellow member of the Worldwide Amanda Association (the WAA), I was drawn to her distinctive look. Maybe it's just the sunlight on the hair, but those cerulean eyes, that ivory skin, evoke to me a lady descended from royalty, a princess or a goddess from antiquity.

But then, I broke the spell by watching their little love video. True, this is invariably the most boring crap on the web. The Times films the couple recounting how they met, mixed with shots from their vacations and dopy footage of the pair fawning over each other. But Amanda, really, must your voice be so whiny? Must your comments be so dumb? Must your posture be so bad? You have a name to live up to! Next time, I'll leave the back story (complete with voiceover) to my little imagination.

Ouch

Wow, nearly a month without writing, that hurts.

In reality, cherubs, I've been biding my time a bit, getting ready for my next and final and most demanding semester. To facilitate this process, the night before my first day of classes, I decided I would achieve fuller zen if I clocked my head against a brick wall and took a trip to the emergency room. Seriously. The fresh wound on the back of my cranium completes the scar triptych I had begun at the age of 5 (when I expressed my dismay at someone changing the TV channel by flinging my head against a wall and smashing my barrett into the skin) and revisited at the age of 13 (while ice skating, I learned that a mild concussion is an effective way to come to a complete stop).

But after trauma and drama, kindness from strangers, my cut and my face bathed in salt water, eight staples - that's right, staples, not stitches - plugged into my scalp, I was cared for and brought home with a tenderness that made the distress evaporate, and let me sleep dreamlessly.

Besides that excitement, I have also been figuring out how to make good on my New Year's resolutions. I was considering posting that weighty list for your amusement, but I felt too embarassed. Really! After sharing all sorts of inner thoughts in this space, it just seemed like too much to broadcast my innermost insecurities. I have a few sundries to offer, and then, I will tell you a few of my resolutions, which I decided to phrase as Quaker worship queries, rather than the customary list of commands.

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Top 10 things I like about Boston:

1. It's not too far from New York.
2. You occasionally run into New Yorkers.
3. The pizza, transportation system, provinciality, lackluster restaurants, limited culture, cold weather, and eerie lack of diversity make me really appreciate New York.
4. In their heart of hearts, Bostonians want to be New Yorkers.
5. When I say I'm from New York, Bostonians occasionally look at me as if I had just said that I am from Heaven.
6. Civic life takes place behind closed doors.
7. Like New York, you can talk to yourself on the streets (in Boston because they're so empty, in New York because they're so crowded!)
8. The backwards ways of doing things reminds me of Europe. (New York isn't European
   at all.)
9. New England apples are just as good as New York apples.
10. Although it's more difficult to meet friends in Boston than in New York, once you do meet them, it's easier to keep them.

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Read this and write. The rightfully hyped Orhan Pamuk describes in his Nobel acceptance speech his singular motivations for writing, and gives a glimpse into the experience of creating art using only yourself. I found some parallels to the study of music, and it made me want to be more diligent about my writing as well.

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A little while ago I steamed up some artichokes. My Chinese roommate, unfamiliar with the plant, peeked into the pot and thought they were little animals!

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This month's break from the conservatory treadmill has been a relief. I had become too deeply conscious of the negative concerns of performing and studying: competition with others, proper deference to instructors who might eventually be career builders, self criticism at the expense of any self praise, etc. For various reasons, I am beginning to rediscover a love for the art itself, a passion that is easy to lose sight of.

With that, here are some questions, musical and otherwise, that I want to think about this year:

• When I perform, how do I want the audience to feel?
• What would happen if I trust that my technique is strong enough to allow me to be musical?
• Do I believe that the composer's intent is still clear, even if the performance isn't perfect?
• What kind of character do I want to be? As a performer? As a friend? As a person?
• What is my role in this city?
• What traits do I hold dear, and which I could cultivate in myself and others?
• How would it feel to perform without doubts or questioning, but instead with pleasure and empathy?
• What if a lifetime is long enough for a dream or two to become reality?