My Inner Self, and Pete Cassani's Beautiful Whaling Guitar

So tonight I was in Harvard Square, waiting to square off against my newest psycho roommate, soon to be gone bye-bye, not wanting to see him at all but needing to get it over with so I can move on with my life. Finally the guy arrives. I present my case for a deduction in his refund, due to all the crap he pulled in the one short week he stayed at my house, and in the background I can hear Pete Cassani's beautiful guitar. As we begin to wind things up, the volume goes up and up over in the Pit. I assume the monitor has long gone, since it is quite close to midnight. Pete is playing lead guitar to Roger Nicholson's rhythm guitar. Roger has been singing some songs, Pete has been taking the solos. As I say good-bye to my now ex-roommate, alcoholic and unpleasantly unpredictable and young and irresponsible and quite wealthy and no doubt carrying a very sad story in his soul, Pete's guitar solo starts to REALLY soar.

I feel relieved that this most recent saga is over. I LISTENED to my inner self quite QUICKLY for a change. She was REALLY freaking out about this guy, almost the minute he arrived from Germany. My outer self, who represents insane socialization to be blindly "nice" and "understanding" without regard to my own needs and safety, and a long history of being lied to for the sake of other's needs and addictions, was confused. "But he doesn't seem THAT bad? What's the big deal?"

My inner self would have NONE of it and would not let me sleep more than 4 hours a night for the first few days of his arrival. She was virtually SCREAMING at me inside my head, "GET RID OF HIM, NOW!!!"

The most amazing thing is that I am sure she realized almost immediately that he is a totally messed up alcoholic, whereas my lied to socialized self only fully realized it tonight, after one week, when I saw him in front of me, half drunk as I discussed the problems he had caused in one short week. And I realized that he had probably been drunk almost every night, since he arrived late and fumbling and loud from a night out with friends, 5 nights out of the 7 he had been at my house.

I felt like Pete's guitar playing was giving me courage, and I just spoke up clearly and firmly. The soon to be ex-roommate agreed to the various deductions in his refund, gave me the keys and finally we were done!

As I walked to my bike, I swear, Pete's guitar was flying to the heavens. I don't know if I have ever heard him play so beautifully. It was just Pete, the volume cranked up, and this amazingly gorgeous waterfall of music cascading through most of Harvard Square, showering everyone with incandescent stardust, love and JOY!!!

Thanks for the help Pete! I had forgotten how beautifully you play. And how healing, powerful music can be. Pure magic.